“The market may be bad, but I slept like a baby last night. I woke up every hour and cried.” – unknown
Where are we, at the end of July 2019?
The markets did fine in July and actually the S&P 500 was up approximately 18.9% for the year as of 7/31. Such a fast ride, all by itself (forget specific events), can easily cause a correction. The clever quip you see above is in response to yesterday’s drop which was nearly 3%, all in the day!
There is no question that this is an aging bull market and I’m watching for signs of the progression that portends a major drop. One sign of aging, for sure, is the weakness in small cap funds. Another troubling sign is the global economic weakness. It’s definitely a hard act for the U.S. to stand out alone in terms of economic strength. But no, I don’t believe we’ve begun the process of unwinding this bull market quite yet.
How Did the Markets and our Funds Do in July 2019?
All index and fund returns are courtesy Morningstar.com. Here are the index returns and our fund returns:
| Jul-19 | |||
| S&P 500 | 1.31% | ||
| Nasdaq (technology) | 2.11% | ||
| Dow | 0.99% | ||
| NYSE Composite | 0.13% | ||
| Russell 2000 (small co) | 0.51% | ||
| US Aggregate Bond Index | 0.17% | ||
| ONEQ | 2.22% | Fidelity Nasdaq | Fidelity commission free ETF |
| IJR | 1.19% | iShares Small-Cap | Fidelity commission free ETF |
| FTEC | 3.61% | Fidelity Info Tech | Fidelity commission free ETF |
| FDIS | 1.25% | Fidelity Discretionary | Fidelity commission free ETF |
| FBIOX | -2.22% | Fidelity Biotech | stock mutual fund |
| FCYIX | -0.87% | Fidelity Select Industrials | stock mutual fund |
| FCNTX | 0.91% | Fidelity Contra Fund | stock mutual fund |
| FBGRX | 2.02% | Fidelity Blue Chip Growth | stock mutual fund |
| PSGAX | 1.39% | Virtus KAR Small-Cap Gr | stock mutual fund |
| FKDNX | 1.88% | Franklin Dynatech | stock mutual fund |
| CFRAX | 0.90% | Catalyst floating rate | fixed income mutual fund |
| EIFAX | 0.78% | Eaton Vance floating rate | fixed income mutual fund |
| FFRAX | 0.70% | Fidelity floating rate | fixed income mutual fund |
| GIREX | 0.22% | Griffin real estate int rate | fixed income mutual fund |
| RNDLX | 1.71% | RiverNorth Strategic | fixed income mutual fund |
| FAGIX | 1.12% | Fidelity Capital & Income | fixed income mutual fund |
| LENDX | 0.49% | Stone Ridge Alternative | peer to peer fixed return m.f. |
| Starwood REIT | 1.90% | June | real estate investment trust |
| Blackstone REIT | 0.77% | June | real estate investment trust |
| Prime Meridian Real Estate | 0.55% | June | private peer to peer fixed return |
| KIP, Kay Income Partners LP | 0.56% | July | private mortgage fund |
Your investment return(s) for July 2019 was/were as follows:
We should talk if you would like to review exactly where you stand or if we should consider a change. I am available at your convenience. I have Skype video in case you would like to do a video conference.
Best,