I am moving my office this week and dispatches from the brand new puzzle cave will be limited for a while.

The process of packing up after nine years leads to some interesting discoveries and, since I am quite partial to using the wayback machine, I will undoubtedly be writing about some of what I’ve found in the coming weeks and months.  By definition, that’s what pix is all about:  I use line drawings to illustrate the flow of important variables over time.

Throughout this week, I’ll be showing charts that look at the first six months of the year.  All will use ETFs, strategies that were available to everyone and widely used.

The first chart illustrates how the components of a very basic allocation performed.  These include the dominant benchmark for U.S. stocks (via SPY), a combination of developed and emerging foreign stocks (VEU), the standard for high-quality U.S. fixed income (AGG), and commodities (DBC).  Each of these areas will be broken down further in coming charts.

In its simplicity, the chart shows the flow in the performance of risk assets over the months, coming out of the gate quickly and then doing poorly until a spurt towards the end.  But stocks overall performed much better than commodities.  Fixed income plodded along, as it often does.  (Chart:  Bloomberg terminal.)

Stay tuned for the rest of the “halftime report.”  To get notifications via email, please subscribe; there also is a full RSS feed available.

big issues

The latest Prudent Fiduciary Digest includes links to great articles of importance to investment decision makers — regarding the controversy at Dartmouth over conflicts of interest, top investing priorities, risk management, and differing views about mutual fund boards.  The bottom line:  What questions should you be asking?