By Scott Ronalds

From our Quarterly Report:

We’re going through a rough patch right now. Volatility is up, portfolio values are down and the news is mostly bad: China slowing, commodity prices plummeting and central bankers maintaining crisis-level interest rates. But as investors, we have to maintain some perspective.

Balanced portfolios are up for the year, and the investing backdrop has improved meaningfully. For stocks, price-to-earnings multiples have moved closer to their historical averages and our fund managers are again finding securities that are attractively priced. For fixed income, the reward for owning riskier corporate bonds (extra yield) has increased. And importantly, investors in general are less optimistic, both towards the stock market and economy, which is a good thing. Low expectations are an excellent foundation for future returns.

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