An unusually “quiet” August spawned new highs for U.S. stocks, but recent softness in economic data amid a contentious election season has given investors pause. Fundamentally, earnings have declined for five straight

Great Britain threw investors a curve ball with its vote to exit the 28-nation European Union. Leading up to the vote, equities and commodities strengthened in anticipation of just the opposite outcome, so the reaction in asset prices after the vote was predictable —stocks and commodities fell while bonds and gold rose. 

What began as the worst start ever for stocks in early 2016 morphed into a market that recouped its early innings damage. As depicted in the accompanying chart, similarities between corrections observed last August and what just occurred are striking. In both cases, blue chip U.S. stocks fell by 12-13 percent because of growth scares emanating from China.

Concerns about flagging growth in China and the implications for a global economy already experiencing slow expansion led to a broad equity sell-off last quarter. The correction in the S&P 500 was arguably overdue since the U.S. had gone nearly four years without declining by 10 percent or more.

Economic growth in the first half of the year was depressed by a severe winter, the west coast port strike and a plunge in oil companies’ capital spending. However, these temporary conditions have largely passed and led by housing, the economy is now clearly emerging from

Volatility aside, 2015 is playing out much the way we anticipated. Europe’s central bank has graduated from talking about quantitative easing (QE) to actually delivering on it, and with $1.1 trillion of bond purchases planned for the next 18 months, markets