WASHINGTON: U.S.-stock funds posted a 1.8% total return in January, a month that saw the hullabaloo of Dow 20000 and the minute-to-minute ups and downs of the Trump administration. It was a turnaround from January 2016, when the market’s tumult sent the average diversified U.S.-stock mutual fund to a negative 6.3% return, according to Thomson Reuters Lipper data. In fact, indexes hadn’t had a January gain since 2013.
Stock-market measures have advanced since President Donald Trump’s election, on expectations that the economy will reignite. Toward the end of January, though, the administration’s travel-ban fallout cut into stock gains. As financial and industrial shares—which soared after the November vote—fell back in January, some investors again visited the “safe” corners of the market, like gold. Gold-oriented funds, which had soared 55% in 2016 but ended the year on a down note, advanced 15% in January. Bond funds eked out small gains, but analysts said some investors are warming to them again as yields increase. Funds focused on intermediate-maturity, investment-grade debt, the most commonly held type of bond fund, gained 0.3% for the month. International-stock funds, which had been pummeled by U.S. counterparts in 2016 (10.8% to 0.7% in favor of the U.S.), turned the tables in January with a total return of 3.5%.
