March 2025 Economic & Market Highlights
Market Commentary
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The CPC Team
April 16, 2025

March 2025 Economic & Market Highlights

  • U.S. equities declined, with the S&P 500 falling 5.6% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 4.1%. Small-cap stocks fared worse going down 6.8%, emphasizing their vulnerability to rising interest rates and tighter financial conditions. Sentiment weakened amid elevated Treasury yields, persistent inflation pressures, and uncertainty regarding the timing of potential rate relief.

  • Bond performance was mixed. The Bloomberg Aggregate had relatively no change in the month while municipal bonds struggled dropping by 1.7%. Weaker technical factors, including heavy new issuance and continued outflows from muni funds, contributed to their under performance.

  • International equities were more resilient with International Developed dipping just 0.4%, supported by relatively stable European economic data and a weaker U.S. dollar. Emerging markets increased by 0.6%, due to improving financial conditions in select developing economies and steady capital inflows. Despite persistent global growth concerns, international markets outpaced U.S. counterparts for the month.
Source: Bloomberg – All performance is percentage change of total return
The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index of 500 widely held stocks that is generally considered representative of the U.S. stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), commonly known as “The Dow” is an index representing 30 stock of companies maintained and reviewed by the editors of the Wall Street Journal. The Russell 2000 Index measures the performance of the 2,000 smallest companies in the Russell 3000 Index, which represent approximately 8% of the total market capitalization of the Russell 3000 Index. The MSCI EAFE (Europe, Australasia, and Far East) is a free float-adjusted market capitalization index that is designed to measure developed market equity performance, excluding the United States & Canada. The EAFE consists of the country indices of 22 developed nations. The MSCI Emerging Markets is designed to measure equity market performance in 25 emerging market indices. The index's three largest industries are materials, energy, and banks. Bloomberg US Aggregate (BBAG): The index is a measure of the investment grade, fixed-rate, taxable bond market of roughly 6,000 SEC-registered securities with intermediate maturities averaging approximately 10 years. The index includes bonds from the Treasury, Government-Related, Corporate, MBS, ABS, and CMBS sectors. Bloomberg Municipal Bond Index: The index is a measure of the long-term tax-exempt bond market with securities of investment grade (rated at least Baa by Moody's Investors Service and BBB by Standard and Poor's). This index has four main sectors: state and local general obligation bonds, revenue bonds, insured bonds, and pre refunded bonds.
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