Perspectives Newsletter: Q4, 2021
A weak start to December gave way to a Santa Claus rally to close out a year that began on an inauspicious note. After a negative -1.1% return in January, the direction turned up and hardly looked back. There were only two more down months in 2021 and just a single drawdown of 5% or more: -5.2% from September 2nd to October 4th. With the nearly +29% advance for the year, the S&P500 has now returned a total of +90.13% over the past three years—the best three-year run since 1999. Energy was the year’s best-performing sector at +53.3%, followed by REITS at +46.2% and financials +35%. A huge rally from value in the final weeks of the year was not enough to fully close the relative performance gap to growth. Looking further down the capitalization scale, small and midcap equities lagged their larger peers in the quarter and for the year. Abroad, developed market equities rose in the quarter but were unable to match the advance seen domestically. Emerging market equities eked out a gain in December but were still negative over the final quarter, and for the year. Brazil, China and Hong Kong were all particularly weak. Even after a precipitous December decline, Bitcoin still managed to post eye-popping gains for the year on the back of a large advance in earlier quarters.
