Every quarter, Canterbury's Outsourced CIO committee shares their observations of the market that impact the management of our discretionary portfolios in the Canterbury Outsourced CIO Commentary.

After almost two years since the start of the pandemic, the world is still being impacted by COVID-19. A new variant of the virus has emerged, but the effect of the pandemic is slowly beginning to subside. Most people have developed some level of immunity to the virus, either through inoculation or infection. The global economy overall has also adapted to the virus as people have found ways to adjust their lifestyles to provide themselves with better protection and safety while still participating in economic activities. This resilience has allowed for the recovery in economic activity as well as a steady decline in unemployment and a greater increase in corporate revenue and profits.

In 2020, governments across most countries responded to COVID-19 with a broad set of monetary and fiscal stimulus, yet there has been considerable dispersion in the performance of the individual financial markets. U.S. equities continued to outperform their non-U.S. counterparts by a wide margin. For the year 2021, the Russell 3000 Index was up 25.7% while the MSCI EAFE Index was up 11.3% and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index returned -2.5%.

Access the Canterbury Outsourced CIO: Fourth Quarter 2021 Commentary