Sage Advice Quarterly Market Review 3Q1997

The dog days of summer showed up last month and it was evident in the returns, or lack thereof, in almost every sector of the market. The bond market suffered from a combination of anxious profit taking early in the month off July’s rally, a masochistic anticipation for some form of overt negative action by the Fed, an inconclusive array of economic reports and typical late August lethargy. Favorable inflation (2.3% CPI) and unemployment rate (4.8%) reports during the month did little to offset concerns about the shortrun decline of the dollar and the implications for foreign interest in U.S. bonds or the wage implications of the UPS strike.