Market Review

November turned out to be a month of 2 halves, as stocks rose to records in mid-November as optimism over the economic recovery continued, but as news of the new Omicron variant started to emerge [...]

We do our best to emphasise to clients that returns are unpredictable and that one should not react to short-term news, but instead focus on the wealth plan and stay invested to capture the [...]

Not all stocks behave the same way September has provided some different headlines other than “stock markets set a new record high”, as stocks and bonds fell for the month, and US stocks in [...]

Developed world stocks continued to rise in August, and Emerging Market stocks rebounded after a tumble in July. Bonds fell as yields ticked up after Fed chairman Jerome Powell comments at the [...]

July looks a little like a tale of 2 regions, with Global equities continuing their slow and steady climb to new records, while EM stocks had a tumble as changing regulations around Chinese [...]

The summer months are typically a little less exciting in the markets as liquidity dries up. However, the lower liquidity can make for more volatile trading as market participants find it harder [...]

Should you sell in May? If you were reading the financial news headlines in May, you can be forgiven for thinking that it was not a very exciting month in the stock market as the S&P 500 rose [...]

April turned out to be yet another fantastic month to be invested in stocks, as stock market returns continued to be strong. One difference for the performance in the month was that value and [...]

The first quarter of 2021 ended well for our portfolios as value stocks and small stocks continued to outperform as the economic backdrop improved and major economies continue to re-open as the [...]

If you have been reading the financial news headlines you would think that stock markets had a terrible time in February. The headlines were not wrong as the typical barometers for stock market [...]

January was a good month for most of our portfolios, despite the broader markets being down for the month. This is because our allocations to smaller companies and to emerging market stocks [...]

What an eventful year. Before we look ahead to 2021, let us take a look back at how stocks and bonds performed in 2020 and see what happened. Exhibit 1: Performance of major indices 2020 (USD [...]

We have spent a lot of time and effort reminding our clients to 1) be invested and 2) stay invested over the past year. Sometimes, it is not evident why we encourage clients to do so, especially [...]

October was a prime example of the uncertainty facing investors in 2020. On one hand, we have improving economic data reviving hopes that a deep recession will be avoided, sending stocks higher [...]

If you read the news headlines in September, you would not be too amiss for thinking that the stock markets are again in dire shape. News about COVID-19 cases rising in Europe and the US, along [...]

We would like to start off by thanking our clients for staying invested with us through the recent market stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. By staying invested, we have avoided realizing a [...]

Are stock markets not seeing the economic reality? Stock markets continued to rise in July, led by the major tech companies that turned in strong results for 2Q 2020. Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, [...]

Stock markets lost some momentum going into June, with the S&P 500 up only 1.8% for the month after a blockbuster April and May. Emerging Markets picked up the slack by rising over 7% in June [...]

One of the core tenets of Providend’s Investment Philosophy is that we have a long-term focus. This means that we stay invested to capture the long-term asset class returns. We do not trade the [...]

This week marks the 4th week or mid-point of Singapore’s circuit breaker period which began on 7th April. It is a time that is unprecedented in our history, with the streets rather empty of cars, [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a pause in the economic activities which triggered one of the worst quarters of the financial market since 2008. Watch this video by Max Keeling, Head of Expat [...]

Without a doubt, this has been one of the worst quarters in financial markets in a long time, and the worst since 2008. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented pause in economic [...]

We are writing our usual end of month review a little earlier to give you an update on the markets as recent trends of the COVID-19 disease caused by the SARS-COV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory [...]

We ended January with a note to clients on the impact that the Coronavirus is likely to have on our portfolios and discussed various ways our portfolios manage risk to reduce the downside impact [...]

Just like that, 2019 has gone by and US markets have had the best year this decade since 2013. If that sounds surprising, it’s only because of how quickly we recovered from the pain of 2018, [...]

Equity markets delivered another stellar month in November as the US market continued to make new highs with the S&P 500 notching up more record closes in the month. Supported by the [...]

Equity markets continued their ascent with the S&P 500 setting a record close to 3037.56, up 2.04% for the month. The MSCI World was up 2.54% and the MSCI EM was up 4.22% as both Global and [...]

The rumours of the demise of the value premium have been greatly exaggerated. We begin with a paraphrase of a quote from the famous author Mark Twain when asked about his health by a reporter. [...]

The trade war flared up in August as both the US and China signalled that they would impose new tariffs on imports. These tariffs did come into effect on 1st September, with the US imposing 15% [...]

The start of August marks an important milestone for Providend, as it has been three years since we started incorporating Evidence-Based funds from Dimensional, and Index funds from Vanguard into [...]