Can investors breathe a sigh of relief?  The third quarter of 2024 has proven to be both eventful and rewarding for investors across various asset classes. While the first half of the year saw a steady rally in equity markets, fixed-income markets were less fortunate, navigating through a maze of volatility. However, relief came in Q3 as bond markets gained momentum alongside equities, helped by the Federal Reserve's decisive move to cut interest rates by 50 basis points.*  Download the full Market Recap to get insights into these major areas:   the equity market’s resilience;  a resurgent fixed-income market;  geopolitical influences and safe havens; and  the Fed’s interest rate cuts.  The road ahead  Looking forward, investors remain cautious yet optimistic. While the prospect of additional rate cuts presents opportunities, geopolitical uncertainties continue to loom large. Download our comprehensive Market Recap for an in-depth analysis and in...

Investors flock to thematic investing to stay afloat  In the second quarter, investors saw unexpected volatility and high-performance dispersion across equity sectors and capitalization sizes, despite a strong Q1 for equities. Struggling to combat the back and forth, investors turned to thematic investing for stability amongst the hard-to-predict market — making the second half of 2024 anything but boring.   With the unexpected choppy waters for Q3, you’ll want to read the full Q2 2024 Retirement Market Recap for insights on:   Equity market performance: Narrow market leadership driven by a small number of outperformers and sector-specific trends like artificial intelligence and GLP-1 semaglutide drugs.  Federal Reserve and interest rates: Uncertainty regarding the Fed's future actions and a “higher for longer" narrative are creating uncertainty in bond markets.  Geopolitical tensions: Growing concerns over the NATO alliance and international stability. ...

The U.S. equity markets delivered exceptional performance again in the second quarter of 2021. The U.S. economy is rebounding from the pandemic more powerfully than expected--growing at a rate not seen since the early 1980s. Read the Q2 Market Recap to learn more about the drivers of the Q2 record-breaking market performance, including a chart on the three- and five-year annualized performance differentials between the equity and fixed income indices. If you have any questions, or would like to begin talking to a retirement plan advisor, please get in touch by  email  or by calling (800) 388-1963.

HANYS Benefit Services does not believe there is a single definition or statistic that appropriately defines risk for investors, especially when it comes to the nuances of investing for retirement. Instead, we focus on both the art and the science of evaluating risk, and how both approaches can help investors make informed decisions. Statistical measures (the science) primarily focus on an investment’s historical price movement, which can shed light on the predictability, or lack thereof, of an investment’s returns. Understanding one’s own circumstances (the art) can be a great complement to the science in deciding what risks an investor should take on as they prepare for retirement. What is volatility? A popular interpretation of risk is a statistical measure called standard deviation, which measures how wide an investment moves around its average price; or said differently, the dispersion of its returns. Lower standard deviation percentages indicate that the majority of the returns i...

The U.S. equity market recovery that began on March 24 continued in earnest in Q3. However, the Index performance masks significant underperformance in the industries that continue to be impacted by the pandemic. Any failure of the presidential election process to determine a clear winner will likely provide fuel for near-term volatility.  Read the Q3 Market Recap for a brief review of the market performance and chart shows the average annualized return for the S&P 500 Index under the presidential terms dating back to Franklin Roosevelt. Also included is an article describing how HANYS Benefit Services has been Staying Connected to Meet Retirement Goals in spite of the pandemic. If you have any questions, or would like to begin talking to a retirement plan advisor, please get in touch by email or by calling (800) 388-1963.

With the majority of Americans sheltering in place at the beginning of the second quarter, what reasonable person would have forecast that the S&P 500 Index would have appreciated 20.54%, for its best quarterly performance since its inception in 1957? The extraordinary turnaround from the February-March bear market restored most of the negative returns investors suffered in Q1. Read the Q2 Market Recap for a brief review of the market performance. Also included is a summary of IRS guidance impacting retirement plan relief under the CARES Act.  If you have any questions, or would like to begin talking to a retirement plan advisor, please get in touch by email or by calling (800) 388-1963.

With the majority of Americans sheltering in place at the beginning of the second quarter, what reasonable person would have forecast that the S&P 500 Index would have appreciated 20.54%, for its best quarterly performance since its inception in 1957? The extraordinary turnaround from the February-March bear market restored most of the negative returns investors suffered in Q1. Read the Q2 Market Recap for a brief review of the market performance. Also included is a summary of IRS guidance impacting retirement plan relief under the CARES Act.  If you have any questions, or would like to begin talking to a retirement plan advisor, please get in touch by email or by calling (800) 388-1963.