It may have been a joke about dogecoin, but Elon Musk cut to the bone on cryptocurrencies in his Saturday Night Live debut. No one seemed to know enough about dogecoin to make any sense describing it. Falling 40% following the quip, it seems investors also lacked the stomach for the parody coin.

A year ago, business owners struggled to find enough demand for what they sold. Now, everything is flying off the shelf, and they cannot hire fast enough. Such is the yin and yang of this strange economy recovering from a health crisis.

The Biden administration has rolled out a three-part fiscal agenda, dubbed “Build Back Better.” The agenda emphasizes COVID-19 relief and investments in infrastructure, education, childcare, and paid family leave, among others.

Global stocks gained over 9% in the first four months of 2021. After such a strong recovery at the end of 2020, few expected such gains to continue this year.

A year ago, what had been a localized virus in a distant place spread across the world. Prior viral outbreaks – SARS, Ebola, Zika - never spread as feared. However, this one ended up being different. The world has certainly changed in the last twelve months, and the financial markets have shown they remain resilient to new challenges.

Interest rates have risen to start the year. After the yield on the 10-year Treasury reached a nadir of 0.5% basis points during the depths of the pandemic, it recently touched 1.5% - a level not seen since February of 2020.

After January’s exciting finish amidst the GameStop saga, February felt like a return to some sort of normalcy. Investors turned away from the Reddit-fueled trading frenzy as they shifted towards common themes throughout the COVID-19 pandemic: economic recovery and vaccine distribution.

Following a bizarre year, 2021 is attempting to outdo its predecessor. January might as well have been the 13th month of 2020. Between a Senate runoff in Georgia, an unsettling insurrection in Washington, and a social-distanced Presidential inauguration, there was a lot to focus on. But none of these events captivated market-watchers like the frenzied trading in GameStop.

Money in a bank account isn’t earning much these days. In fact, cash has barely outpaced inflation since 1926. History suggests that today’s low return prospects for cash are not all that different from the returns of the past century.

2020 could not end quickly enough. What else can we say about a year that brought a public health tragedy so deadly and devastating that it seems like an unending bad dream? On top of the pandemic, there was deep social unrest and a divisive, extra-contentious election that seemed to throw a wet blanket on everything.

2020 turned out to be a much better year in the financial markets than most anyone anticipated, with both stocks and bonds producing solid returns. While interest, dividends and capital appreciation are the obvious components of good returns, it’s also important to not give up too much to taxes. As a matter of course, we focus on tax loss harvesting and manageable portfolio turnover. Here are some additional considerations as you plan for the upcoming year.

As a COVID-19 pandemic continued to surge, the stock market put in one of its best months on record. Investors are encouraged by positive news on the efficacy of several vaccines and looking ahead to a return to more normal economic activity.

On many accounts, tomorrow’s presidential election will be one for the history books. With the nation feeling exceptionally polarized and anxiety on both sides of the aisle elevated, you are not alone in worrying about what may come next and how it could impact your portfolio.

As if 2020 wasn't already full of shocking twists and turns, news of President Trump's COVID-19 infection added another unexpected development in a bizarre year. It's anyone's guess what the next curveball may be. Surviving the potential ups and downs of the next weeks and months rests not on an ability to predict the future, but on solid planning built to weather whatever the world sends our way.

This year, the yield on a 10-Year Treasury bond reached a new all-time record low of 0.50%. In 1980, the same bond yielded 15%. The secular decline in interest rates provided a tailwind to bond performance over the last 40 years. For most baby boomers and following generations, yields have declined for most of their working life. Now that bond yields have approached zero, have we finally reached the end of this ride? That may be the wrong question.

Stocks notched record highs in August with the MSCI All World Stock Index rising 6.1% for the month. The U.S.-based, now tech-heavy S&P 500 index climbed 7.2% during the same period. As we write, high-flying tech stocks are leading a pullback in stocks, a reminder that enthusiasm can overshoot from time-to-time.

In less than two months, the United States will head to the polls in what will be a divisive election in the middle of a pandemic and economic recession. The barrage of political ads is underway. We are constantly bombarded on TV, social media, and directly on our phones. The political noise is deafening and, between now and November, it's likely to get worse.

We’ve spent years building our cities upwards. Skyscrapers filled with thousands of workers tower over busy city streets. Apartment complexes with small rooms are costly yet typical. Retail stores line the streets with bright lights and big signs, convincing customers to peruse their selection and spend away. Life is busy this way, but it’s exciting.

It is hard to find enough superlatives to describe the economic carnage from the COVID-19 crisis. It is amazing how much a microscopic organism can shock our world.

COVID-19 transformed the world in 2020. How might this new world ultimately look? The most remarkable thing about the markets this year is that if you went to sleep in January and woke up at the end of June, you would not know, from looking at your portfolio, that we are in a health pandemic – arguably, the most significant health crisis in 100 years.