Still, it was a bout of nerves many in the industry could’ve done without in 2017, a year that ranks among the best ever recorded for risk-adjusted returns. Including dividends, the S&P 500 has marched higher for 13 straight months -- including November. Everyone knows there hasn’t been a 3 percent drop between any two dates and that at an average level of 11.2, the Cboe Volatility Index has issued nary a peep.
Icon Advisers’ Derek Rollingson has been doing this too long to be rattled by a few bad days during a year as calm as this one.
“It’s never a comfortable feeling losing money,” said Rollingson, a portfolio manager of the ICON Information Technology Fund, which has fallen about 5 percent in two weeks but remains up 32 percent in 2017. “I’ve had this job for 17 years and we’ve been in such a low volatility. It’s been a blip. This is a nonevent, the amount of volatility we’ve had. Let’s just say in the grand history of the stock market it really hasn’t been that big of a deal.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.