PEEK OF THE WEEK
JUNE 12, 2017
Leif Hagen & Donna Roberts
The Markets
Stock market historians may dub
2017 the Xanax year. Traditional historians will probably choose a different
moniker.
Stock markets in many advanced
economies have been unusually calm during 2017, reported Schwab’s Jeffrey Kleintop in a May 15, 2017 commentary. The CBOE
Volatility Index, a.k.a. the Fear Gauge, which measures how volatile investors
believe the S&P 500 Index will be over the next few months, has fallen
below 10 on just 15 days since the index was introduced in 1990. Six of the 15
occurred during 2017. The average daily closing value for the VIX was 19.7 from
1990 through 2016. For 2017, the average has been 11.8.
Investors’ calm is remarkable
because 2017 has not been a particularly calm year. We’ve experienced
significant geopolitical events. For example, the U.S. launched a military
strike on Syria, and dropped its biggest non-nuclear bomb on Afghanistan. There
have been terrorist attacks in Europe, along with discord in the Middle East.
The European Union has been unraveling. The U.S. government has shown unusual
levels of disarray, and the U.S. President’s passion for Tweets has stirred the
pot.
Just last week, the future of
Brexit was thrown into question when Britain’s snap elections produced a hung
Parliament (no political party has a majority). How did investors react? Barron’s reported the European markets
shrugged off Thursday’s election results and moved higher on Friday, offsetting
some losses from earlier in the week.
In the United States, Former FBI
Director James Comey’s testimony didn’t have much effect on stock markets last
week, according to Barron’s. However,
comments from Goldman Sachs cautioned
the trade in big technology stocks, which have accounted for about 40 percent
of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s gains this year, was too crowded. The
ensuing clamor resulted in the NASDAQ losing 1.6 percent for the week and the
S&P 500 finishing slightly lower.
Geopolitical events do not
appear to have the impact they may once have had. The Fear Gauge finished
Friday at 10.7.
Data as of 6/9/17
|
1-Week
|
Y-T-D
|
1-Year
|
3-Year
|
5-Year
|
10-Year
|
|
Standard & Poor's 500
(Domestic Stocks)
|
-0.3%
|
8.6%
|
15.0%
|
7.6%
|
13.2%
|
4.9%
|
|
Dow Jones Global ex-U.S.
|
-0.7
|
13.1
|
14.5
|
-0.8
|
6.1
|
-0.9
|
|
10-year Treasury Note (Yield
Only)
|
2.2
|
NA
|
1.7
|
2.6
|
1.6
|
5.1
|
|
Gold (per ounce)
|
-0.7
|
9.3
|
0.2
|
0.4
|
-4.4
|
6.9
|
|
Bloomberg Commodity Index
|
0.1
|
-5.8
|
-8.3
|
-14.9
|
-8.5
|
-7.1
|
|
DJ Equity All REIT Total Return
Index
|
0.0
|
4.5
|
5.0
|
9.0
|
11.2
|
5.7
|
S&P 500, Dow Jones Global ex-US, Gold, Bloomberg
Commodity Index returns exclude reinvested dividends (gold does not pay a
dividend) and the three-, five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; the DJ Equity
All REIT Total Return Index does include reinvested dividends and the three-,
five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; and the 10-year Treasury Note is
simply the yield at the close of the day on each of the historical time
periods.
Sources: Yahoo! Finance, Barron’s, djindexes.com,
London Bullion Market Association.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. N/A means not
applicable.
Guess what? the fountain of youth isn’t really a
fountain. For millennia, humankind has been looking for a means of
slowing aging, maintaining health, and restoring youth and beauty. Greek
mythology tells us that Hebe, the daughter of Zeus and Hera, could restore
youth. In the 1600s, Juan Ponce de Leon was rumored to have searched Florida
for the Fountain of Youth. In modern times, many people have turned to their
surgeons and dermatologists with varied results.
The latest news in the search
for youth and vitality involves metabolites. In 2013, a paper published by
Harvard’s David Sinclair, along with other researchers, suggested it might be
possible to reverse mitochondrial decay, which is thought to be a key driver of
aging, by consuming nicotinamide riboside (NR) supplements, reported Scientific American. A 2015 guest blog
post opined:
“If I were a middle-aged mouse, I'd
be ready to spend some of the nickels and dimes I'd dragged off the sidewalk to
try NR supplements. Even before Sinclair's paper, researchers had shown in 2012
that when given doses of NR, mice on high-fat diets gained 60 percent less
weight than they did on the same diets without NR. Further, none of the mice on
NR showed signs of diabetes, and their energy levels improved.”
In March of this year, Science published a paper that expands
on prior findings. The research suggests it may be possible to help cells
repair damaged DNA by restoring levels of an oxidized form of nicotinamide
adenine dinucleotide (NAD).
NASA is supporting the work,
according to ScienceDaily. If supplements
prove effective with humans, it might help keep astronauts – who “experience
accelerated ageing from cosmic radiation, suffering from muscle weakness,
memory loss and other symptoms when they return” – healthy during a four-year
mission to Mars.
Weekly
Focus – Think About It
“On street corners everywhere,
people are looking at their cell phones, and it's easy to dismiss this as some
sort of bad trend in human culture. But the truth is, life is being lived
there.”
--Ze Frank, American online performance artist
Best Regards,
Leif M. Hagen
Leif M. Hagen, CLU, ChFC
LP Financial Advisor
Securities offered through LPL Financial Inc., Member FINRA/SIPC.
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* This newsletter was
prepared by Peak Advisor Alliance. Peak Advisor Alliance is not affiliated with
the named broker/dealer.
* The Standard & Poor's
500 (S&P 500) is an unmanaged group of securities considered to be
representative of the stock
market in general. You cannot invest directly in this index.
* The Standard & Poor’s 500
(S&P 500) is an unmanaged index. Unmanaged index returns do not reflect
fees,
expenses, or sales charges.
Index performance is not indicative of the performance of any investment.
* The 10-year Treasury Note
represents debt owed by the United States Treasury to the public. Since the
U.S.
Government is seen as a
risk-free borrower, investors use the 10-year Treasury Note as a benchmark for
the long-term bond market.
* Gold represents the
afternoon gold price as reported by the London Bullion Market Association.
The gold price is set twice
daily by the London Gold Fixing Company at 10:30 and 15:00 and is expressed in
U.S. dollars per fine troy ounce.
* The Bloomberg Commodity
Index is designed to be a highly liquid and diversified benchmark for the commodity
futures market. The Index is composed of futures contracts on 19 physical
commodities and was launched on July 14, 1998.
* The DJ Equity All REIT
Total Return Index measures the total return performance of the equity
subcategory of the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) industry as calculated
by Dow Jones.
* Yahoo! Finance is the
source for any reference to the performance of an index between two specific
periods.
* Opinions expressed are
subject to change without notice and are not intended as investment advice or
to predict future performance.
* Economic forecasts set
forth may not develop as predicted and there can be no guarantee that
strategies promoted will be successful.
* Past performance does not
guarantee future results. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.
* You cannot invest directly
in an index.
* Consult your financial
professional before making any investment decision.
* Stock investing involves
risk including loss of principal.
* To unsubscribe from the
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Sources:
http://www.cboe.com/products/vix-index-volatility/vix-options-and-futures/vix-index/vix-historical-data (Click on “VIX data for 2004 to the present,” then go
to 6/2/2017)
http://www.barrons.com/mdc/public/page/9_3063-economicCalendar.html (Click on “U.S. & Intl Recaps” and then on
"Snap election shockwaves")
http://www.barrons.com/articles/the-day-tech-stocks-tanked-1497070762 (or go to https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/peakcontent/+Peak+Commentary/06-12-17_Barrons-The_Day_Tech_Stocks_Tanked-Footnote_5.pdf)
