First Quarter 2018 Outlook

The set of factors and circumstances which together produced 2017's robust investment returns might be described as a "Goldilocks" scenario, one in which the positive forces pressing on the global economy and financial markets were warming noticeably, but not so hot already as to prompt dramatic cooling efforts from central bankers. An economist might describe 2017 as a late-stage cyclical environment where the positive cumulative effects of nearly a decade of quantitative easing were compounded by significant fiscal stimulus (from proposed tax cuts) while the potential negative economic and market effects of "quantitative tightening" had yet to be discounted by investors. Will the period of investor-friendly market equilibrium in 2017 continue in 2018?