What Happened in the Markets This Past Week? After a period of historic market tranquility in 2017, a few weeks ago we reallocated and rebalanced our portfolios in order to provide greater opportunities and to help reduce risk going forward into 2018. With the rapidly changing market conditions of the last week, it’s more important than ever to be sure you are diversified, and properly balanced and allocated. Because we took a pro-active approach to managing our clients' accounts, they are in a better position to weather the volatility that has been generally absent from the markets for the past year. On Monday, February 5th, the S&P 500 Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) both fell more than 4%, marking the worst one-day percentage decline since August 2011. When combined with declines from last Friday, the last two trading sessions resulted in these indices falling more than 6%, bringing the indices back to levels as of mid-December 2017. Remarkably, the recent sell-off ends a streak of more than 400 trading sessions since the last time the S&P 500 Index had experienced a 5% pullback (dating back to the Brexit vote of June 2016). Asset Class Index January Return February Return (through Feb 5th) YTD-2018 Return (through Feb 5th) U.S. Large Cap S&P 500 5.7% -6.1% -0.8% U.S. Large Cap Dow Jones Ind Avg 5.8% -6.9% -1.5% U.S. Small