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December 2012 Review Ho Hum December is quite a festive month, filled with the joy of the holiday season and the excitement of New Years Eve. However the stock markets, although positive for the month, were anything but exciting and one could argue that they were somewhat boring and subdued...

November 2011 Review It’s Déjà vu All Over Again Aside from being arguably one of the best catchers in baseball history, Yankee great Yogi Berra was known for his head-scratching quotes...Yet one of his quotes, “It’s Déjà vu all over again”, though still head-scratching, seems to be appropriate given the markets, economy, and geopolitical environment in November. The happenings in November beg the question “Haven’t we seen this movie already?"...

October 2011 Review Trick or Treat? After enduring a miserable third quarter where markets seemed to decline on a daily basis, investors received a treat in October as the markets closed out the month significantly higher. Pessimism turned to optimism as it appeared that a deal would be reached regarding the Greek debt bailout...

September 2011 Review Falling Back into a Recession? The stock market continued its summer slide all the way into September and the beginning of the fall season. In fact, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (“DJIA”) has posted five straight months of negative returns and has not seen a positive month since...

August 2011 Review A Summer to Forget This summer was one we will all likely try to forget rather quickly, due to an earthquake on the East Coast, a hurricane that ripped through the Northeast and a stock market that has been steadily bleeding all summer...

August 2011 Alert What’s All the Fuss About? Following through on an earlier threat, the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) rating agency downgraded long-term U.S. debt from AAA to AA+ on Friday and attached a negative outlook to the new rating. In response, the equity markets plummeted 635 points on Monday...

July 2011 Alert Be Careful What You Ask For As indicated in our July Market Update, the market adjustment has unfortunately arrived. The debt ceiling debate is resolved, though Democrats and Republicans are both far from satisfi ed with the end result. The Democrats failed to get the tax increases they were hoping for and Republicans did not get the significant spending cuts they were angling for in the deal...

July 2011 Review To Raise or Not To Raise, That is The Question United States Treasuries have always been thought of as a safe haven for investors during tumultuous times. When the technology bubble burst in 2000, investors flocked to the relative safety of Treasuries. When the debt crisis hit later in the decade...

June 2011 Review Four Steps Forward, Two Steps Back Financial markets took a roller coaster ride during June, throwing investors and economists alike for a loop. The last month of the quarter was a volatile one, as the CBOE Volatility Index reached the second highest reading of the year...

May 2011 Review Well, It’s About Time Sometimes, the titles of our Market Updates are descriptive enough to reveal major economic themes that took place throughout the month. April’s commentary was titled “April’s Market Brought Flowers, Will May’s Bring Showers?”  To answer the question, the month of May did indeed bring showers across domestic and international markets...

April 2011 Review April’s Market Brought Flowers, Will May’s Bring Showers? Aside from solid corporate earnings, the month of April was practically void of any good news in the economy. That statement may be a bit harsh, but one can certainly argue that most of the economic news released in the month was actually quite disappointing. Interestingly enough, however, the stock market continued its inexplicable rise...

March 2011 Review “March Madness” The month of March is all about March Madness. That is, the NCAA basketball tournament and the numerous office pools that go along with it. But, this March, the focus wasn’t on basketball or office pools, but more on the madness in the Middle East/North Africa region, specifically Libya, and the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that decimated the northeast region of Japan...

March 2011 Alert Turmoil Overseas Until recently, many people probably didn’t think about, or even notice, the fact that the word “oil” exists at the end of the word “turmoil”. Unfortunately, the link between the two words has now emerged front and center with regard to the global economy. The turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa, also known as the MENA region, has sent oil prices skyward...

Feburary 2011 Review An Early Spring? On February 2, 2011, Punxsutawney Phil, the famous groundhog, did not see his shadow; signaling that spring is coming early. If history repeats itself, this is warm news for the S&P 500 Index. Since 1944, when Phil does not see his shadow, the average S&P 500 Index return from Groundhog Day to the first day of spring...

January 2011 Review It’s Been a Happy New Year...So Far January is an interesting month for stock market investors. Many theorize that what transpires in January sets the tone for the rest of the year. In other words, if January is a sub-par month, it is likely that the year as a whole will be sub-par as well and vice versa. Fortunately, that theory has been somewhat disproved over the last two years...

2010 Year in Review Top 10 in 2010 As New Years Day approached, the media inundated us with Top 10 lists of 2010: top 10 movies, top 10 songs, top 10 best dressed, and so on. So, as 2010 has moved into the rearview mirror and we look forward to what better way to say farewell to 2010 than to present USI Advisors, Inc.’s “Top 10 in 2010”...