After a strong first half of the year, global stocks continued to rise in July and August before falling in the month of September. The main barometer for large company stocks in the United States, the S&P 500, ended the quarter with a modest gain of 0.6%, bringing the total return for the first three quarters of the year to 15.9%.
Attractive gains have been recorded in other domestic equity asset classes this year. Value stocks fell 0.8% during the quarter but the Russell 1000 Value Index was up 16.1% year to date as of September 30. Small companies, as represented by the Russell 2000 Index, fell 4.4% during the quarter but year to date gains were still 12.4%. Despite a 3.0% decline for the Russell 2000 Value Index in the third quarter, the value part of the small cap market shows a 22.9% year to date gain.
The complete Quarterly Summary is available on the B|O|S website here.
The following are important footnotes from this episode:
1 Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/business/stock-bond-real-estate-prices.html
2 Source: https://www.ppic.org/press-release/four-in-ten-support-newsom-recall-job-approval-holds-steady/
3 Source: https://www.uhaul.com/Reservations/RatesTrucks/
4 Data as of 6/30/21. Median since 1981. U.S. stocks represented by S&P 500 Index, Foreign Developed by MSCI EAFE Index. Source: Research Affiliates, Robert Shiller websites.
5 Data as of June 30, 2021; Russell 1000 Value Index and Russell 1000 Growth Index; Source: Bloomberg
This episode referenced the S&P 500 Index, which is a market capitalization-weighted index that generally contains the 500 largest publicly traded stocks in the U.S., subject to certain restrictions. It also referenced the Russell 1000 Value Index, which is a market capitalization-weighted index composed of constituents in the Russell 1000 Index with low price to book ratios and lower forecasted growth rates. Additionally, it referenced the Russell 2000 Index, which is a market capitalization-weighted index of U.S. small cap stocks that consists of the 2,000 smallest publicly traded stocks in the Russell 3000 Index. Further, it referenced the Russell 2000 Value Index, which is a market capitalization-weighted index composed of constituents in the Russell 2000 Index with low price to book ratios and low forecasted growth rates. Additionally, it referenced the MSCI Real Estate Index, which is market capitalization-weighted index measuring the total return of stocks in the U.S. Real Estate industry. The episode also referenced the MSCI ACWI Index, which is a market capitalization-weighted index that captures large and midcap companies in developed and emerging market countries, including the U.S. In addition, the episode referenced the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which is a market capitalization-weighted index that captures large and midcap companies in emerging market countries around the world. This episode also referenced the MSCI China Index, which is a free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index designed to measure the performance of large and midcap equity securities in the Chinese equity market. A-Shares, H-Shares, B-Shares, Red Chips, and P-Chips may be included in the index. This episode referenced the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, which is a broad-based bond index that measures the investment grade, US dollar-denominated, fixed-rate taxable bond market. The index includes Treasuries, government agency bonds, corporate bonds and securitized fixed income securities. Further, the episode referenced the Bloomberg U.S. TIPS Index, which