Hennion & Walsh

One of the long standing adages on Wall Street is that investors would be wise to "Sell in May and Go Away" in most market environments. This adage contends that stock volatility historically is higher during the months of May - October so investors may want to consider exiting the stock market in May, perhaps repositioning to less correlated asset classes, and returning to the stock market in November.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen said her expectation for the first increase in the Federal Funds Rate would come approximately six months following the end of the asset purchase program.

Last Wednesday, Janet Yellen presided over a press conference as the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve (Fed) following the conclusion of the Federal Open Market Committees (FOMCs) two day meeting and their release of the official FOMC statement. Markets hung on every word and some confusion was created afterwards as Yellen offered a more transparent look at the Feds timeline for raising interest rates.

Gold declined approximately 28% for the year of 2013, its worst annual performance since 1981 according toUSA Today. At that time, the downturn ended Golds own bull market run of 12 consecutive years as investors jumped on the back of this current bull market by piling into stock funds in 2013 and largely exiting bond funds.

While we are forecasting a high, single-digit gain for the S&P 500 index over the course of 2014 at this time, we do still contend that U.S. stock market returns will likely be outpaced in 2014 by certain International ? Developed Country stock market returns (notably Europe) as regions such as the Eurozone continue to emerge from their own recession.

Most investors have most likely never even heard of Ukraine prior to the last two weeks. Now the future of Ukraine and potential repercussions on other countries in the region appear to be at the forefront of investor minds across the globe. Overall, Ukraine is a relatively small country in Eastern Europe with a population of about 46 million people that borders the likes of Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova.

Some Bumps along the Road of Global Recovery

The technical anomaly popularly called the "Santa Claus Rally" describes the abnormal positive returns the market experiences in the last month of the calendar year. Logic would suggest that the optimistic behavior of market participants due to the holidays, combined with higher sales during the busiest shopping season of the year, justify the movement in stock prices, but shouldnt this seasonality be priced into the market already?

While we are encouraged that the U.S. economy has been growing, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, for 15 consecutive quarters starting in the third quarter of 2009, we are concerned that the growth rate has been below that of previous economic recoveries and the economy appears to be stalling and struggling to get back above a 2% growth rate thus far in 2013.

For income oriented investors, bonds can provide for a dependable and consistent stream of income, and principal protection when held to maturity. Bonds, whether they are Municipal, Government or Corporate bonds, can also provide for compounded growth opportunities when the income received from the bonds is reinvested. Additionally, for growth-oriented investors, fixed income securities can provide investors with downside protection and diversification within a growth portfolio especially in a highly volatile market where additional, measured, short-term flights to quality are likely.

On the ETF front, while we did see some positive net flows into bond-oriented ETFs (notably High Yield Bonds), we also observed significant funds flowing into domestic and international emerging market equity products. In terms of outflows, or redemptions in this case, funds were flowing out of a wide variety of Morningstar categories, albeit only slightly on the bond-oriented front. I believe that the divergence in fund flow information for the first quarter of 2012 may primarily be related to the types of investors who generally invest in the products.

Most media outlets, in addition to the Fed, focus on core inflation readings. We think that this could be very misleading because mainstream America does not have the luxury of excluding food and energy from their everyday lives. Hence, if food and energy prices are rising (and not being picked up by the core inflation readings), Americans are likely to have less disposable income, unless commensurate increases in wages occur to offset the price increases. Less disposable income generally leads to lower overall consumer sentiment/confidence which translates into lower consumer spending.

We are encouraged by the strong start to the New Year and some of the recent economic data reports. Yet, with all of this mounting optimism, we are mindful that the first half of 2012, at a minimum, is still likely to be volatile as headwinds still persist in our view.

What likely transpired yesterday was that investors finally siad, The economic recovery has no clothes, despite repeated claims by the Federal Government and certain economists to the contrary over the past 6-12 months. While historical research has shown that typical stock market recoveries generally precede economic recoveries by 6-9 months; perhaps it was too soon. While many encouraging signs pointing to a sustainable economic recovery have emerged over this timeframe in terms of corporate earnings GDP growth and M&A activity, many headwinds for the U.S. economy still exist.

While many validly fear that the downgrade may impact borrowing costs for our country, the larger potential risk, in my opinion, could be related to the types of assets that certain institutions (Ex. Banks) can hold on their respective balance sheets. Such a downgrade, or future downgrades, could force a large scale liquidation of these holdings due to changes in the underlying credit quality. With this said, no such panic selling of U.S. Treasuries has occurred. In fact, yields on 10-year U.S. Treasuries have fallen significantly.