"The Year of the Dart, Redux"

It isn’t often that you get back-to-back years in financial markets that are almost complete opposites.  But alas, here we are.  For our astute readers, you may notice this title has been recycled from the first Market Insight of 2018.  For those who need a quick refresher, that piece was about how one could have thrown a dart at a list of major asset classes for 2017 and hit one with positive performance every time.  Well, it you get that dart back out and repeat the exercise for 2018, you will find negative returns on every throw.  2018 was the antithesis of 2017, culminating with the worst December since 1928 in terms of returns for the S&P 500.