The month of March followed the old aphorism nicely from a weather and climate perspective. For most of the country, it went in like a lion with harsh weather conditions while the month ended like a lamb with relatively mild weather.\u00a0 The stock market, however, was another story altogether.\u00a0 It came in with hopeful trepidation like a rabbit and exited like a rabid dog, biting and chewing anything its size that entered its path.\u00a0 No one\u2019s quite sure whether the \u201cmad dog\u201d is clearing the way for a bull, a bear, or something unknown after the first week of April that consisted mostly of buying the dip in US markets.<\/p>\n
Trade ValuEngine supported portfolio strategies, www.ValuEngineCapital.com<\/a><\/p>\n Most investors are well aware that in the long-term the markets always shrug off even the most major geopolitical disturbances But some are worried that this may be the exception that proves the rule.\u00a0 At any rate, there can be little doubt that the aggressive war in the name of the pre-emptive strike that the US and Israel are waging in Iran has injected a level of uncertainty into the markets that hasn\u2019t been seen in most of our lifetimes.\u00a0 Without going into details, the high stakes, potential perils and complete unknowns are exigent factors that are difficult if not impossible to integrate into even the most sophisticated of automated trading models \u2013 even those using AI.\u00a0 At ValuEngine we will concede that the longer such an environment envelops the world, the more difficult it becomes to use risk and predictive models and it will be difficult to distinguish leading future performers from laggards. However, ValuEngine\u2019s models usually do very well when major geopolitical issues begin to wind down and markets regain some semblance of normalcy.<\/p>\n Fortunately, hindsight is still 20\/20 so one thing we can have confidence in is our annual first quarter performance review.\u00a0 There is an interesting breakpoint here.\u00a0 The first two months saw momentum increase slightly on one of the trades that started in July 2025 and permeated the rest of the year.\u00a0 That was easing out of positions in \u201cthe Magnificent Seven\u201d mega-cap tech giants and other large cap growth stocks and into previously underperforming small cap and value stocks.\u00a0 The month of March did not discriminate that much and took all major US equity market size and style ETFs down at least 3.8%, and at most 6.4%. This is a relatively sharp decline for just one month.<\/p>\n Free Trial: Direct Access to ValuEngine Research on over 5,000 stocks and 700 ETFs HERE<\/a><\/p>\n This table provides the data.<\/p>\n