Gresham’s 2006 Annual Outlook

For the year 2005, U.S. stock markets appreciated modestly, as shown in Exhibit 1 to the right. Within sectors, energy was the star performer, up 32%, followed by utilities, up 16%. Otherwise, it was hard to find broad areas of support. Other sectors provided lackluster to down results, as market leadership was narrow. Discretionary consumer goods brought up the rear, down 6%, which includes the very poor performing auto and related companies.