From our Quarterly Report:

2014 was a bizarre year. It was bookended by extremes, volatility and contradictions, but had a long stretch of calm in the middle. Oil prices dropped 45% in a matter of months and energy stocks followed suit. Other cyclical stocks were up and down like yo-yos.

It was, nonetheless, a good time for investors and our clients experienced another year of positive returns (six in a row). The funds’ performance, however, was mixed. The Equity Fund was our best by a good margin, despite having some oil stocks to contend with. The Income Fund also performed well, even after we spent the early part of the year tempering return expectations (oops). The Global Equity and Small-Cap Equity Funds were laggards in 2014 for a number of reasons outlined later in the report.

At the risk of boring regular readers, I want to outline why I’m playing defense at this point in the market cycle, and why it’s appropriate for long-term portfolios ...

Read Tom's full brief and the rest of our report here.