To the Moon and Back
It would be an understatement to say that we live in a fast-paced world. We won’t even begin to list all the things that have happened in the first three, going on four, months of 2026. But when history looks back on this time, the moon mission of Artemus Two might well be the defining moment. That was a truly historic event. Beyond the scientific importance and the groundwork it laid for future manned moon missions, it provided a ‘feel good’ success that we really needed. Thanks, NASA!
Life here on planet Earth has become increasingly volatile. We humans have gotten pretty good at taking SHOCKING HEADLINES in stride, and the US consumer has proven to be quite resilient. However, the current crisis in the Middle East may have a lasting impact on the price of oil and gas, and if it goes on long enough, it could start to seep into inflation.
We believe diversification is going to be key in managing risk this year. The numbers in the chart above are from the end of March and do not reflect the sharp recovery we had in April, but it illustrates how the different sectors responded in the first quarter. International and emerging markets, and small and mid-cap stocks, outperformed the S&P 500 again this quarter. Bonds held steady, and gold continued to push higher in the face of uncertainty. Having the appropriate asset allocation will help keep us on the proper flight path.
**The index returns are drawn from Morningstar Advisor Workstation. Indexes are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly by investors. MSCI EAFE NR USD-This Europe, Australasia, and Far East index is a market-capitalization-weighted index of 21 non-U.S., industrialized country indexes. S&P 500 TR USD – A market capitalization-weighted index composed of the 500 most widely held stocks whose assets and/or revenues are based in the US; it’s often used as a proxy for the stock market. TR (Total Return) indexes include daily reinvestment of dividends. Bloomberg US Agg Bond TR USD This index is composed of the BarCap Government/Credit Index, the Mortgage Backed Securities Index, and the Asset-Backed Securities Index. The returns we publish for the index are total returns, which includes the daily reinvestment of dividends. The constituents displayed for this index are from the following proxy: iShares Core US Aggregate Bond ETF. MSCI Emerging Markets IndexSM is a free float-adjusted market capitalization index that is designed to measure equity market performance in the global emerging markets. Russell 2000 – Consists of the smallest 2000 companies in the Russell 3000 Index, representing approximately 7% of the Russell 3000 total market capitalization. The returns we publish for the index are total returns, which include reinvestment of dividends. The MSCI Emerging Markets (EM) IndexSM is a free float-adjusted market capitalization index that is designed to measure equity market performance in the global emerging markets. As of May 2005 the MSCI Emerging Markets Index consisted of the following 26 emerging market country indices: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and Venezuela.. The FTSE NAREIT Equity REITs Index is an index of publicly traded REITs that own commercial property. All tax-qualifies REITs with common shares traded on the NYSE, AMSE or NASDAQ National Market List will be eligible. Additionally, each company must be valued at more than $100MM USD at the date of the annual review. Equity REITs include Diversified, Health Care, Self Storage, Industrial/Office, Residential, Retail, Lodging/Resorts and Specialty. They do not include Hybrid REITs, Mortgage Home Financing or Mortgage Commercial Financing REITs. Bloomberg Sub Gold TR USD Description unavailable. Formerly known as Dow Jones-UBS Gold Subindex (DJUBSGC), the index is a commodity group sub-index of the Bloomberg CI composed of futures contracts on Gold. It reflects the return of underlying commodity futures price movements only and is quoted in USD.