Well…that was a rude awakening. Volatility came back with a vengeance in Feb, logging the 5th worst VIX spike in the past 20 years. And it wasn’t just stocks… world stocks, real estate, and commodities all got smacked into the red. Coronavirus fears spiking, Presidential election twitter posts…..all the things we mentioned in our 2020 outlook as “binaries” that would affect the 2020 markets showed up in spades, with bonds acting as a safe haven – and managed futures holding their own as a crisis period investment despite coming into the move long equities (their long bond positions helped).

 

 

Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

 

Sources: Managed Futures = SocGen CTA Index,

Cash = US T-Bill 13 week coupon equivalent annual rate/12, with YTD the sum of each month’s value,
Bonds = Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (NYSEARCA:BND),
Hedge Funds = IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF (NYSEARCA:QAI)
Commodities = iShares S&P GSCI Commodity-Indexed Trust ETF (NYSEARCA:GSG);
Real Estate = iShares U.S. Real Estate ETF (NYSEARCA:IYR);
World Stocks = iShares MSCI ACWI ex-U.S. ETF (NASDAQ:ACWX);
US Stocks = SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY)

All ETF performance data from Yahoo Finance.