By Chad Roope, CFA®, Chief Investment Officer We recognize that the market is currently experiencing turbulence and volatility not seen in several years. Given the strong returns we experienced in 2023 and 2024, the instability of the last week feels particularly unsettling for most of us. Given this volatility, we’ve made recent trades and rebalanced our clients’ portfolios. Despite the current uncertainty, we anticipate that 2025 will be a reasonably good year for stocks. Our belief is that we will finish the year with returns in the mid- to upper-single digits. Over the course of the year, however, we expect the markets to be much more volatile than what we have experienced over the past few years. Our belief that the economy is still fundamentally strong has three supporting points. The first is earnings, which are growing at a strong rate. In addition to good earnings, we're beginning to see the market broaden beyond just a few top tech stocks. Many other stocks are also trending higher as we enter 2025. Finally, while there’s a great deal of uncertainty in terms of policy, tariffs, trade deals, and other changes in Washington, we also think that these changes – and the volatility that comes with them – are creating opportunity. Within our clients’ investment accounts, we've recently rebalanced our strategies. Some of the things that did so well last year were slightly above our target weights, leadi