20 Jan 2012 Modest Improvement

Equity investors believe that the domestic and global economies are on the mend judging by their behavior so far. Since the end of September the US Total Market Index, S&P 500, and Dow are up 21%, 19.5%, and 18.5%, respectively. Global stocks as measured by the FTSE All-Worldex-US index are up 11.3%. In contrast, investors are shunning the safety of Treasuries as theBarclay’s 7-10 Index is down .25%. But last year the index soared 15% compared to a meager2% for the S&P 500.