Well we made it through the first quarter of the year in positive fashion. The markets, while certainly not spectacular, were generally positive.

In 2013 around this time, the markets were up about 10 percent while this year we are up around 2 percent on the broad market. Hey, if you annualize that, it’s 8 percent and that would be OK with me.

In 2012 the markets were up about 16 percent for the year. Last year markets were up around 30 percent, and so adding 8 percent to that this year would not be a disaster.

As I write this on Thursday, the markets have moved a little above the end of the third quarter so the market strength continues to confound.

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The Boo Birds are starting to appear and now some voices are warning of a setback. I love this stuff.

This is my thought. I have no idea what the markets are going to do over the next day, week or month. I’m concerned about five years from now, not tomorrow. If investors did that, we all would be better off.

What I see happening to some degree now is that stocks that have been leading the way with their strength have lost some of that strength. That is not unusual. If a stock runs up 50 percent, sometimes it needs to take a rest or even go down a little.

I also see some strength in bonds. I find that interesting. Normally bonds show strength, prices increase, as interest rates go down. So, some interest rates have gone down.

Now that is surprising to most of us. I don’t necessarily believe that interest rates are going up, but I sure did not expect them to go down.

Historically we are still really low. Long term mortgage rates are around 4.5 percent. When I bought my first house many moons ago, rates were 9 percent.

Historically rates continue to be low. Call a bank and ask them what their five year certificate of deposit is yielding and you will get the idea.

Same old story continues good for borrowers and bad for investors. Where did those five year 4 percent treasuries go?

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I read the results of a survey of advisers recently done by an investment company which shall remain unnamed. I’m going to run this by you and you can draw your own conclusion.

Here’s the quote. “75 percent of advisers say their clients are more focused on asset growth than on preservation of their assets. 68 percent of advisers say their clients are willing to take on greater investment risk. 54 percent say their clients are eager to make up for past investment losses, even if it means taking on more risk.”

I can tell you factually that 54 percent of the investors that I know are not “eager” to take on more risk.

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April is typically the second best month of the year for investments with December holding the number one position. We need a little help here. As I write this we are up about 1 percent so we could use another 1 percent or so to keep April in line.

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The foreign markets which I like to follow have not been providing returns like we like them. The norm pretty much used to be that if you had a portfolio of domestic stocks and foreign stocks, you would outperform a portfolio of domestic stocks. That has not been true in the past few years.

If you have been reading me for a while, my mother has, you know that I always talked about foreign investments in a positive way. There is at least one investment company out there that believes, basically, that you should hold foreign investments right along with domestic.

So they are making that decision for you. What I see is that investors don’t know that. They make an investment which they think is U.S. investments, but if they look at the prospectus, most don’t, that is not reality.

I am looking at a mutual fund right now that if I said the name, you would assume that their investments are domestic. Wrong. The one I am looking at right now says that 25 percent of the investments are non U.S.

If that concerns you, perhaps you should take a look.

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The wife came into the Man Cave the other day, and I thought I would make her day by asking, “Hon, how would you like to go on a second honeymoon”?

She excitedly said, “Fantastic, who am I going with?”

I don’t think she is funny.

Howie Pentony is a Saxonburg client portfolio manager.