Yuan
The Market Is Up and I Am Not...Why?
Submitted by Ferguson Financial Inc. on December 13th, 2014
Remember that the major indices don’t represent the entirety of Wall Street.
The S&P 500 is up about 10% YTD, why aren’t I? If your investments are lagging the broad benchmark, you may be asking that very question. The short answer is that the S&P is not the overall market (and vice versa). Each year, there are money managers, day traders and retirement savers whose portfolios wind up underperforming it.1
Keep in mind that the S&P serves as a kind of “Wall Street shorthand.” The media watches it constantly because it does provide a good gauge of how things are going during a trading day, week or year. It is cap-weighted (larger firms account for a greater proportion of its value, smaller firms a smaller proportion) and includes companies from many sectors. Its 500-odd components represent roughly 70% of the aggregate value of the American stock markets.2
