Despite the weakness in Q3, the fourth quarter of 2021 proved resilient, delivering a total return of 11.02% despite some minor volatility late in the quarter driven by the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and the Fed beginning to act on inflationary pressures.

Consumer confidence is highly correlated to concerns on Covid-19. This is important to watch as rising covid fears can impact consumer spending. The recent spread could be consumers also beginning to focus back on jobs, wages, geo-political developments. Fortunately, the Delta variant appears to be waning.

Earnings continue to rise worldwide as the world's economies reopen. This is very positive for accelerating GDP worldwide. The U.S. economic recovery is several months ahead of the rest of the world, so we would expect the rest of the world to see accelerating growth.

As the economy slowly reopens, the leading economic indicators continue to increase to near the highest levels in over 20 years.

During Q4 of 2020 stocks continued to recover from the March lows, despite a pull back in late October, setting all time highs for the S&P 500.

Q3 of 2020 saw continued recovery off of the March bottom, though experienced weakness in September, before turning upward again.

The stock market began one of the most dramatic rallies in history in Q2 of 2020. Government and Federal Reserve efforts to support consumers, the credit markets and small businesses led to heightened investor confidence.

Congress has passed three bills aimed at mitigating the economic impact of COVID-19 and putting money into the economy. The most recent is the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. At about $2 trillion, it's the largest economic stimulus legislation in American history since the New Deal in the 1930s.

All major asset categories posted strong results in 2019. The shift to monetary easing and lower interest rates boosted returns to bonds, and U.S. large cap equities led the outperformance of U.S. versus non-U.S. stocks.

Both U.S. equities and bonds benefited from the dovish shift in tone from global monetary policymakers that many investors hoped would lead to lower policy interest rates and greater liquidity growth. More globally linked assets such as commodities and emerging market equities lagged.

Interest rates decreased in the US U.S. Treasury Curve (%) fixed income market during the first quarter of 2019.

Broad-based asset-price weakness prevailed in 2018, with no major category posting a positive return. U.S. stocks registered double-digit declines during Q4 to finish out their worst year since 2008, though they still outperformed non-U.S. equities in 2018. Plummeting oil prices pulled down commodity prices.

The sturdy domestic economy bolstered U.S. stocks, especially small caps, which are less exposed to global trends and trade risk. Rising U.S. Treasury yields and a stronger U.S. dollar contributed to the recent sell-off among emerging market stocks.

There have been a lot of news headlines and market reaction to the recently announced tariffs. This presentation aims to answer many of the questions about what has been going on and will center around these main points.