MARKET RECAP
- U.S. stocks again climbed to new highs in December, finishing 2017 with a gain of 21.7%
- This marked the 14th straight positive month for the S&P 500, a record for the index
- The S&P 500 finished the month with a gain of 1.2%
- Top Sectors: Telecom (+5.8%), Energy (+4.7%)
- Bottom Sectors: Utilities (-6.4%), Real Estate (-1.0%)
- Large Cap Value outperformed Growth again in December by just 0.7%
- Growth still outperformed Value by 16.5% on the year, the widest spread since 2009
- Small Cap ended down 0.4% on the month
- With a 2017 return of +14.6%, small caps were the worst performing size segment
- International developed countries outperformed U.S stocks by 0.1% on the month and 3.4% year-to-date
- Emerging markets were up 3.8% on the month and ended as the best performing asset class of 2017 up 37.3%
- Long-Term Treasury yields were again relatively unchanged in December
- The ten-year Treasury yield ended at 2.40%
ECONOMIC NEWS**
- The economy created 148,000 jobs in December, marking the 7th consecutive year of job gains over two million
- However, the pace of job growth has subdued to just 1.4%
- Hourly wage growth came in at 2.5% growth year-over-year, unchanged from November
- The Federal Reserve voted to increase the Fed Funds rate by 0.25%, bringing their target range to 1.25-1.50%
- According to Bloomberg, the probability of another rate hike in March is 82%
