Monument Wealth Management's
"Off the Wall" Blog!

It’s a great line by the Bishop from Caddyshack, and it came to me as I spent some time catching up on market research over the weekend.  The market continues to rally to new highs, but according to a recent survey conducted by Bespoke Investment Group, the number of investors who think the market will be lower in a month is greater than those who think it will be higher.  The major market indices extended their winning streak to four weeks in a row and set new highs in the process, but much like the full run of this current bull market, there seems to be plenty of skepticism. 

I recently went exploring in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park and came across a part of the lava flow that covered a road along the coast.  I thought this picture I snapped of a surviving road sign was a good lead in to my comments about what happens when everyone expects the worst.  

This is a line from the 1998 movie, The Siege, where a U.S. Senator is contemplating the use of the U.S. Army to track down terrorists in NYC. It’s far from the best line in the movie, especially given the recent events in Boston.  More fitting was the quote from General William Devereaux played by Bruce Willis, “This is the land of opportunity, gentlemen. The opportunity to turn yourselves in.”

It’s an obscure line from A Few Good Men.  It could read “She’s the Stock Market. She’s very pleased to meet you.”

Unfortunately I missed posting a blog last week – I had a few things to tie up from the previous week and was not able to get to it in a timely manner.  I’ll be writing a separate end of the quarter overview and will post a link to it in an upcoming blog.   

The euro-zone miseries have abated thanks to European Central Bank (ECB) efforts, but it’s clear from last week that they have not been solved. The latest flare-up in Cyprus is a reminder that Europe’s banking system still has a number of weak spots. Interestingly, (thankfully?) markets in the U.S. haven’t shown much concern and as of this morning it looks like a bailout has been completed.  So while concerns will likely linger due to undercapitalized euro-zone banks and an ongoing European recession, the promises of increased liquidity from the ECB has bought policy makers more time and has had a calming effect.

Great – March Madness is here.  The annual 64-game NCAA basketball tournament kicks off this week and as a business owner I can assure you I’m losing money on productivity.  In fact, since it’s just not worth fighting, we started our own bracket for charity.  If you’d like to participate, email us and we’ll sign you up.  1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place winners get $500, $250, $100 to the charity of their choice.

It’s the middle of March already and the market has just kept going up and up.  6 of the 10 sectors in the Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) are up more than 10% and all but telecom are positive for the year.  In fact, we are celebrating the 4^th anniversary of this bull market with March 9^th, 2009 being the day that the S&P 500 hit its low point of the apocalyptic meltdown that began in 2008.  Since that day in 2009, the S&P 500 is up over 130% and is less than 1% away from a historical high.  I’m sure you’ve heard that the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit that mark last week. 

I am currently traveling on the west coast conducting a portion of my annual Marine Corps Reserve training and was unable to post this past Monday, but given yesterday’s events, I had to get a quick blog out. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) finally finished the day at a record, closing at 14,254, decisively passing through the October 2007 closing high of 14,164.

The Oscars... so much hype.  And as it turns out, the next day’s biggest trending topic is not about the overall winner, but instead, that Jennifer “J Law” Lawrence took a spill on the steps on her way up to receive her award.  She was then captured by the press playfully flipping off a person in the crowd.  It was kind of like the market action last week; the Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) fell over Wednesday and Thursday only to flip off all the bull market skeptics and come back to finish the week down slightly to about -0.30% for the week.  This was the S&P 500’s first weekly loss of the year, snapping a seven-week winning streak and displaying a level of volatility the markets haven’t seen since late December of 2012.