Third Quarter 2015 Market Review

History shows us that the greatest threats to a bull market are recessions. So when the market fell quickly (-11%) one week in August, investors and the financial press were quick to round up the usual suspects to blame for the recession that was likely to occur. Heading up the list was once again China which is struggling to keep its growth rate from declining too much due to the structural changes underway in that country.

Europe was also not progressing as well as hoped for despite the quantitative easing efforts their central bankers adopted a number of months ago.  And lastly, the talking heads on CNBC, etc. once again pointed to the perceived threat of Fed interest rate hikes that would “surely” pull the economy in the wrong direction.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and NASDAQ all declined in the 6%-7% range for the third quarter and brought the year-to-date results to minus 7-8%. Fortunately, the stock markets rebounded during October, which completely recouped these losses.  In addition, Intermediate Term bonds inched 0.95% higher during the quarter as the rates on 10 year U.S. Government Bonds declined from 2.33% to 2.06% for the period.

While we were surprised to see the market recover its losses so quickly, we did not believe a recession was imminent and, therefore, thought the August market decline was one of those “normal” corrections that most market gurus have been forecasting at one time or another over the past 2-3 years. In our opinion, China is doing an okay job of transitioning to a consumption based economy. Trends in Europe are still positive and their central banks are on alert to provide additional monetary stimulus if necessary.

And, finally, we very much doubt that a modest rise in interest rates will do noticeable harm to our economy. However, we rate the overall investment environment only good at the present time and we wouldn’t be surprised to see a bump in the road before global economic growth becomes more certain.