A Review, and a Look Ahead
It is customary at year end to put on a seers cap and prognosticate about potential market returns for the year ahead. While we are at least a little bit guilty of that from time to time, before we make any predictions its salutary to take a look forward from a year ago first (just to remind us how accurate predictions usually are).
This is usually a harsh lesson to anyone who claims to be able to forecast financial markets.
Most markets – with the exception of commodities – had an OK to pretty good 2014. Here are some illustrative returns for the year for various asset classes:
In Local Currency terms In NZD terms.
| In local currency | In NZD terms | |
| S&P500 Index | +13.7% | +20.2% |
| NZSE50 Index | +17.5% | |
| US Treasury Index | +6.2% | +12.2% |
| US Aggregate Bond Index | +6.5% | +12.0% |
| Auckland Median House Price | +11.0% | |
| MSCI All Country World | +4.2% | +9.9% |
| NZ Median House Price | +9.0% | |
| NZ Government Bond Index | +8.2% | |
| Gold | -1.8% | +3.8% |
| NZDAUD | +3.5% | |
| ASX50 Index | +7.1% | +3.6% |
| Emerging Markets Equities | -2.2% | +3.4% |
| NZD Trade Weighted Index | +2.2% | |
| Nikkei Equity Index | +8.9% | +0.4% |
| NZDUSD | -5.4% | |
| Bloomberg Commodity Index | -17.0% | -12.3% |
| WTI Oil | -45.9% | -42.8% |
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