October Performance

For October the balance increased 1.1%. It was a wild ride as the markets gyrated pretty violently throughout the month. While I underperformed the S&P 500, which increased about 11% during the month, I am happy that the balance ended up for the month after beginning the month largely in treasuries and ending the month in stocks on a day the S&P 500 declined 2.5%. Treasury prices declined significantly during the month as the yield on the 30-year treasury rose about 30 basis points.

I look forward to comments by both the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank this week. In both cases I expect at least talk of additional monetary stimulus since the economic outlook remains cloudy. Should the markets begin to anticipate additional stimulus I expect the dollar to decline, yields to rise, and stocks to lift. These types of movement should drive performance going forward.