2022 was a brutal year for markets, offering few places to hide to novice and professional investors alike. As we transition to 2023, the following questions are top of mind: How does 2022 market performance compare to history? What is the near-term outlook for a recession? How should recent economic data be interpreted? 2022 Investment … Continue reading 2022 Economic & Market Review
On the Governance Functions of Proper Benchmarking A portfolio’s benchmark is a tool that helps a client (asset owner) perform the essential governance function of monitoring the management of its portfolio. While a good benchmark will make this governance function easier, a bad benchmark will make it more difficult. This paper explains what a “good … Continue reading Good and Bad Benchmarks
Download our 2022 Capital Market Assumptions White Paper. Sellwood’s 2022 Capital Market Assumptions portray a more optimistic environment for most asset classes, compared to a year ago. Investor expectations for inflation are a core building block for both market prices and their prospects for future return. Rising inflation expectations contributed to an increase in our … Continue reading 2022 Capital Market Assumptions
Note: These assumptions are now outdated. Our current capital market assumptions and our white paper documenting their construction can always be found on our Capital Market Assumptions page. Sellwood Consulting’s 2021 Capital Market Assumptions contemplate a prospective lower-return environment, caused by last year’s declining yields and expanded valuations. These 10-year, forward-looking assumptions of asset class return, risk, and … Continue reading 2021 Capital Market Assumptions
Every year, we update our forward-looking Capital Market Assumptions – the building blocks of our asset allocation work on behalf of Sellwood clients – as of December 31. Because equity and bond markets have changed so considerably in the first quarter of this year, we have taken the extraordinary step of updating those assumptions outside … Continue reading Capital Market Assumptions: Mid-Year Update
Note: These assumptions are now outdated. Our current capital market assumptions and our white paper documenting their construction can always be found on our Capital Market Assumptions page. Sellwood Consulting’s 2020 Capital Market Assumptions contemplate a prospective lower-return environment caused by last year’s extraordinary valuation expansion in nearly every asset category. These 10-year, forward-looking assumptions of asset class … Continue reading 2020 Capital Market Assumptions
This past March marked the 10-year anniversary of the market bottom that concluded the 2008/2009 Global Financial Crisis. The decade ending March 31, 2019 was a very interesting one for market observers and practitioners. We offer ten market observations from that decade, and, informed by history, ten predictions about what the next ten years may … Continue reading Ten Years, Ten Observations, and Ten Predictions
“The greatest scientists are artists as well.” — Albert Einstein Two questions: When was the US Equity market riskier for an investor: March 2009. The S&P 500 has just fallen 55% from its peak and the trailing ten-year standard deviation of S&P 500 returns was 21%. The market trades at a valuation of 13 times … Continue reading Modeling the Reality of Risk in 2019
Note: These assumptions are now outdated. Our current capital market assumptions and our white paper documenting their construction can always be found on our Capital Market Assumptions page. Sellwood Consulting’s 2019 Capital Market Assumptions are available. These 10-year, forward-looking assumptions of asset class return, risk, and correlation are the key input variables for our asset allocation work on behalf … Continue reading 2019 Capital Market Assumptions
Back in 2014, we wrote a piece, Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Rates?, which argued that long-term investors in fixed income securities should not fear rising rates. At the time, we argued two things — first, that it is not the question of whether rates would rise, but rather the timing and pattern of … Continue reading Rise and Shine: Why Bond Investors Still Shouldn’t Fear Rising Rates