March 2018

Woodstock Quarterly Newsletter / Winter 2018

2017 was a phenomenal year for stocks, with the S&P 500 Index returning 21.8%. The NASDAQ Composite Index returned 29.6%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average returned 25.1%. Internet stocks drove the market, but the Dow’s cyclical stocks also performed well. Many international markets had strong double-digit gains in US Dollars as well, helped by a 10% decline in the currency over the year. The S&P 500 Index has generated positive returns for fourteen months in a row, the longest such stretch since 1959.[1] Stock market volatility also has fallen to the lowest level we have seen in years. This strong, consistent performance has buoyed sentiment and fostered some level of speculative interest.

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Woodstock Quarterly Newsletter / Winter 2018

Woodstock sits both in the larger financial industry of banks, insurance companies, broker dealers and investment management firms, and amongst our competitors in the investment management world.  In the larger financial industry, who gets to keep the difference between a historic 8% return on equities, an “equity-like return”, and a historic 4% return on “risk free” investments, such as government bonds?  Currently government bonds are at 2% while stocks have kept up their 8% average return, so the question is even more important now.  Also, as interest rates rise above 2%, a bond originally bought yielding 2% will lose market value.[1]

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Woodstock Quarterly Newsletter / Winter 2018

Over the next few months, analyses of the new tax law, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which is generally effective starting January 1, 2018 will be forthcoming.  Most of the tax return preparation for the year 2017 will be under the old law and planning for 2018 and beyond will be under the new law, a dual mandate for tax departments this year.

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