A New Decade, A New Beginning?

Aggresive government policies may jump-start the U.S. economy, but longer-term risks remain. We suspect investors will be happy to say goodbye to the last decade during which investment returns in most asset classes were far below historical norms. As we begin this new decade, we are optimistic about one important issue: equity prices are not at the extreme “bubble” levels that they were a decade ago—due to the dot.com era—and that alone, we believe, portends better returns in the coming decade.