Tuesday, April 3, 2012

A Strong Quarter

The first quarter of 2012 ended last Friday, with a very positive record for the stock markets. The S&P 500 finished the quarter up 12.59 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average closed the quarter more slowly, gaining just 8.84 percent, but the Nasdaq rose by 18.67 percent.

There were gains nearly everywhere you look. According to Morningstar, the worst-performing investing style for the three months was large-cap value, which still returned 8.25 percent. At the other end of the spectrum, large-cap growth stocks returned 17.5 percent, the best performer among the investing styles. The top sector for the quarter was financial services, up 22.29 percent; the worst - and the only sector to lose value - was utilities, which were down 1.51 percent.

One odd thing about the gains is how smooth they were. In 2011, when the markets were basically flat, there were 68 trading days where the S&P 500 moved up or down by more than 2 percent. That kind of volatility has been mostly absent this year. So far in 2012, we've had only one such day.

No comments:

Post a Comment