Below are the Q1 and Q2 return numbers as well as the combined year to date. What are the key observations?
1.Treasuries are kicking the crap out of stocks again. Those that said to sell bonds continue to look like morons.
2.The only equity index down year to date is the NASDAQ Composite. If you own Mid Cap stocks you are crushing it. The $64,000 question that has to be asked is, “Why is this the worst year for hedge funds?” Pretty easy answer is they suck at shorting stocks and market timing.
3.Silver and Soybean are the best performers in the Commodity space. USDA WASDE Crop Data at 12:00 EDT. My favorite is CORN which is up 9.68% year to date.
4.The U.S. Dollar is down and all other currencies are up against it. We discussed this earlier in the week.
5.International markets see Brazil killing it to the upside gaining 35% and Russia up 20%. Emerging market is the laggard down -2%. it has some serious catchup.
6.In terms of Sector/Group tracking, Biotech is God awful at -18%. Utilities are the winner at 17%.
That is all, contemplate these stats and develop a process to follow them like we have or miss out on pretty obvious trends.
