Sage Advice Quarterly Market Review 4Q2015

2015 could be characterized as a year of disappointments, with both economic growth and asset returns coming in below expectations. A host of macro concerns, including an emerging market slowdown, the impending US tightening cycle, and falling commodity prices kept returns low across all asset classes and volatility high. For the year, returns in risk assets were hard to come by with global equities experiencing negative returns of -1.8%, US equities outperforming but only returning 1.4%, and commodities losing more than 26%. While most broad equity and fixed markets were near flat for the year, there were several major performance landmines that investors had to sidestep during 2015. The worst were energy related investments, with oil off 50%, and emerging markets, with broad EM equity, currencies, and debt experiencing double digit losses on average.