Even though largecapstock market averages are nearly 7% higher than they were at the start of the year, they have spent the first eleven months of 2010 bouncing from the lower to the upper bands of a sideways trading range.
For example, largecap stocks have historically returned about 9% per annum in the U.S., but due to the new market realities, of slow growth, heightened volatility, punctuated by periodic financial crisis, an annual return estimate of 6% to 8% for a largecapstock portfolio might be more realistic.