2006 Year-end Letter

To Our Clients and Friends of Parthenon LLC The S&P 500 finished the first half of the year with a modest total return, including dividends, of 2.71%. The overall results give an impression of placidity, but belie the turbulence the equity markets have experienced since spring. The relative calm of the first quarter gave way…

2006 Summer Letter

To Our Clients and Friends of Parthenon LLC The S&P 500 finished the first half of the year with a modest total return, including dividends, of 2.71%. The overall results give an impression of placidity, but belie the turbulence the equity markets have experienced since spring. The relative calm of the first quarter gave way…

2005 Winter Letter

The stock market fought, and barely won, the battle in 2005 against dramatically rising energy costs and relentless Federal Reserve interest rate increases. For the year, the S&P 500 with dividends was up a modest 4.9%. The Dow Jones Industrial average was down fractionally before dividends, but up 1.7% including dividends. During the year oil…

2005 Summer Letter

To Our Clients and Friends of Parthenon LLC The market was unable to make any headway in the first half of the year. Much like the stone continuously pushed up the hill by the mythical Sisyphus, every advance was ultimately rolled back. The primary culprit was higher oil prices. Investor fears of the potential widening…

2005 January Letter

To Our Clients and Friends of Parthenon LLC The S&P 500 returned 10.87%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average a modest 5.30% (both with dividends re-invested) for the year. It would be tempting to refer to this as a “normal” year since total returns were close to the historic average for the broad equity market.…

2004 Winter Letter

To Our Clients and Friends of Parthenon LLC After three years of painful declines for the average equity investor, it was again pleasurable to own stocks in 2003. The S&P 500 rose 28.7%, including dividends. This was the strongest advance for the broad index since 1997. The gains were fueled by an economic acceleration, which…

2004 Summer Letter

To Our Clients and Friends of Parthenon LLC In spite of turbulent economic news and geopolitical events, the equity and bond markets were subdued in the first half of the year. The major stock market indices made little headway for the period, and volatility was mild by recent standards. The S&P 500 rose 3.44%, while…

2003 October Letter

We are modifying the name of our firm to Parthenon LLC. We are doing this in order to avoid any potential confusion with a private equity investment firm in Boston that was formed at nearly the same time that we formed Parthenon. Coincidentally, the name of their firm is Parthenon Capital. Although their client base…