Caissa is launching our new quarterly event series, CAISSA Conversations, in March. CAISSA Conversations brings people together for an intimate forum that offers a review of a personal or financial topic and how it relates back to your life. Each quarter, we'll bring a new conversation to the table. Our inaugural event will be on one of the hottest discussions of 2014:  Digital Assets, how to protect your online identity and how to transfer it upon your death. 

We cordially invite you to attend and hope to see you there! Save the date, March 24. Watch for an invitation in your email!

Last year marked some volatile times in the stock market. We had four time periods where the Large Cap markets lost more than 5-7% which makes for a bumpy ride unless you're diversified! The large cap indexes ended up about 7% on the year while the International indexes ended down -7.5% and emerging markets were down -5%.   Peak to trough, small caps lost about -12% at one point in the year. While these markets were down, others were up. This is why we focus a lot of time on diversifying assets and mitigating having all your investments tied to one particular market class. Average gains were modest for 2014 but overall, clients still were significantly ahead of their corresponding benchmarks net of fees.

Last year was also a year of many global conflicts and new topics. China surpasses the US to become the largest trader in the world with $4Trillion of traded goods, the FOMC ended its bond buying program "QE3" in October and the markets took a strong beating when Ebola reached US soil in the 4th quarter. To spoil October even further, Germany announced that it was about 4% off to the downside on their trade numbers. Many of these headlines remained just that, headlines. There are still some lurking torpedoes in the water within Europe and the Euro participants as well as Asia and its dependency on oil. We continue to monitor all of these situations and focus on the long term viability of our clients' financial plans.