After the worst December since the throes of the Great Depression, we followed with an almost equally strong first quarter, the strongest since the 1980s. Toward the end of the fourth quarter and into the beginning of the first quarter, we were buyers of equities, where appropriate. Our convictions were rewarded with several companies announcing […]

The worst December since 1931. As an active market participant, it is hard to remember much else about 2018. Not even the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 produced as big of a sell-off in December as we experienced last year.

So we all had been lulled to sleep. In research done by Morgan Stanley, the average number of annual trading days with a 3% market move is 6.5 when one looks back to 1928 through present. 2018 has now had 5 so far, and it’s just a normal year according to historic data.