August was another tough month for diversified portfolios. For the third month running, the Capital Spectator Global Market Portfolio Index lost ground in August, declining 3.3%.
For the major asset classes generally, last month was a mixed bag, as our table below shows. REITs were the leader, posting a 2.4% advance. U.S. stocks weren’t far behind, earning 1.7% for the month. The big loser in August: commodities, shedding 7.4%, a steep loss, which is all the more painful after July’s 12% decline. Foreign equities and bonds were also hard hit last month. Overall, August wasn’t pretty for broadly defined market-valuation-based portfolios.
Strategic-minded investors might wonder if owning a portfolio that’s diversified across the world’s major asset classes, and weighting the components by their respective market-valued share, remains an intelligent decision. Year-to-date, our Global Market Portfolio Index (GMPI) has shed 8.6%. That’s slightly better than U.S. stock performance, which posts a 10.1% loss through the end of August. Nonetheless, one might expect a broadly diversified multi-asset class portfolio to fare better. What’s going on?