I’m going to keep this brief because it’s a holiday weekend.
Thursday ended the first half of 2016. It wasn’t the greatest first half to a year, but they can’t all be greatest either. The S&P 500 traveled a lot, yet went nowhere the past six months. All that bouncing around to get nothing can be frustrating.
Part of investing is accepting that the market has unpredictable mood swings. That becomes more apparent when you see the S&P and other indexes as nothing more than barometers to market behavior. Graham’s Mr. Market parable explains it best and the index is a minute by minute measure of Mr. Market’s mood.
I should have all the asset tables updated early next week with the 2016 first half performance results. As always, you can find prior year tables here and you can find the interactive asset class table here. Links to the other tables are at the bottom of that page.
That’s all. Enjoy the links and have a great 4th of July.
Last Call
- When Stocks Give You Nothing – M. Housel
- The Brexit Effect: The Signals amidst the Noise – Musings on Markets
- The Science of Why People Insist on Making Idiotic Choices – Quartz
- The Big Man Can’t Shoot (podcast) – M. Gladwell
- Every Financial Crisis Is Different – J. Rekenthaler
- Words of Wisdom and Advice for Aspiring Value Investors – Latticework
- Ted Weschler: The Recipe for Financial Success – Business Insider
- The Surprising Relevance of the Baltic Dry Index – New Yorker