Business
The major markets climbed back toward all-time highs as all five indices closed the week higher. Emerging Markets added an impressive 2.4% making it the first of the major markets to reflect a double-digit return year to date. Much like Emerging markets, small caps had been under pressure for much of 2020. However, Small caps have continued to outperform their large cap peers since late last year. The greatest gains across the style boxes were seen in Small Cap Growth which sit with a year-to-date gain of 17.06% as of Friday’s close. At the sector level, 8 of the 11 sectors closed higher with Consumer Discretionary and Utilities seeing the greatest losses. Meanwhile, Energy added 4.33% last week, adding to its 2021 outperformance. Last week’s gains in Crude Oil and Natural Gas were a continuation of rising energy prices due to the polar vortex hanging over the country the last 10 days. Headlines describing the strain on the nationwide power grid read like something more appropriate in the peak of the dog days of summer. It was reported that more than 4 million homes in the United States and Mexico have experienced some form of blackouts. Natural Gas was simply unavailable in some regions, sending some power plants offline. In Economic news, the Consumer Price Index reflected a gain of 0.3% as inflation fears were stayed for the time being. However, Friday’s Consumer Sentiment fell from 79 to 76.2 marking a six-month low for the index. Furthermore, families earning less than $75,000 annually reported the largest decline in optimism. Finally, the yield curve remained largely unchanged last week with some steepening occurring in the longer-term yields. This weighed on bonds, causing returns to fall, taking the Bloomberg Barclays US Aggregate Bond Index to a year-to-date loss of 1.23%.