????2014年即將成為歷史，各路股市專家也終于可以松一口氣了。

????從投資決策角度來看，2014年是有史以來最糟糕的年景之一，幾乎可以說是全盤皆輸。除了少數華爾街億萬富豪才玩得起的“股東積極主義”維權策略還算奏效外，沒有哪種投資策略在這一年里始終靈光。

????對于更多的普通投資者而言，在標普500指數回報高于歷史平均值的大背景下，2014年是充滿挫折的一年。

????我們不妨借用一些狄更斯的名句，來回顧下幾乎各種戰略都失靈的2014年：

????這是最好的時代，這是最壞的時代……

????今年，標普500指數的總回報率為14%，比該指數25年期平均年化收益率高出40％。過去12個月，華爾街的首席戰略師們一直在上調其目標值。標普500指數出現了50多次創紀錄的收盤，幾乎所有專業投資管理人士都卯足了勁，至少要跑平該指數。但有些因素讓美股投資者要獲得高于基準股指的收益，在今年尤為困難。

????這是智慧的時代，也是愚蠢的時代……

????今年領跑美國股市的標普500公司的行業組合有些奇特，出現了一些令人意想不到的黑馬。就算基金經理預見到了醫療保健行業今年將上漲27％，難道他們也能猜到公用事業行業將位列第二，上漲23％？不大可能。

????今年年初，所有華爾街經濟學家都呼吁提高利率，彭博社就這個問題調查了67位經濟學家的意見，他們全票贊同，有鑒于此，任何一個有理性的人都不會想要增持對利率敏感的公用事業股。把賭注押在金融股上的投資者，回報進展緩慢；而瞅準了“低價”能源股的投資者，投資組合業績在第一和第二季度曾因此推高，卻在第三和第四季度被大拖后腿，可謂“成也蕭何，敗也蕭何”。

????這是信仰的時代，也是懷疑的時代……

????另外兩個在2014年表現上佳的行業可謂風馬牛不相及：高科技（上漲16％）和必需消費品（上漲13.2％）。市場上最激進與最保守的兩大投資領域前后腳撞線，留下困惑的旁觀者們不知該如何解釋這一現象。2014年，美國失業率大幅下降，GDP呈增長勢頭，為何領跑市場的卻是醫療保健、必需消費品、公用事業等周期性最不明顯的行業？令專家們懊惱的是，有些時候就是沒有令人滿意的答案。美國作家庫爾特?馮內古特曾寫道：

????老虎要獵食，鳥兒要飛翔；

????人類想知道“這是為什么？”

????老虎要入眠，鳥兒要降落；

????人不得不告慰自己，原來如此。

????如果你認為一開始準確判斷應增持和減持哪些行業的股票是件難事，在年內不斷調整投資組合更是難上加難。11月，野村證券一位定量分析師向《巴倫周刊》表示：“行業領軍者每個月都在變換，其變化速度之快，在股市數十年未見。即便你選對了某行業的個股，由于市場環境瞬息萬變，業績也根本無法持續。”

????這是光明的季節，也是黑暗的季節……

????對投資者而言，今年對行業的準確判斷還只是個小問題，因為除了美股，今年全球的投資好選擇不多。

????鑒于標普500和納斯達克指數都回升了14％以上，道瓊斯和標普400中型股指數也都回升了近10％，你可能會認為今年被動投資者應該收獲頗豐。確實，要不是那些惱人的海外股業績不佳，大拖多元化投資組合的后腿，被動投資者原本應該值得慶祝。

????大多數專業顧問（包括我在內）都會對其客戶大力鼓吹全球化多元投資組合的好處，然而，在12月看來，殘酷的現實是2014年更像是個平局，而非大獲全勝。事實上，上周摩根士丹利資本國際全球指數同比僅上漲了2％，而摩根士丹利資本新興市場指數（MSCI Emerging Markets）和追蹤美國以外發達國家市場的EAFE指數雙雙下跌了近5％。具有諷刺意味的是，除美國以外全球唯一一個表現上佳的市場——中國大陸股市的上證綜指（上漲了45％），也是唯一一個美國投資者無法進入的市場。

????從10年和20年的時間跨度來看，地域和資產類別的多元化已經證明對投資回報和風險管理有益。不幸的是，在12個月內，不一定能看到此種戰略的好處。在如今這個140字微博消息和2分鐘短視頻盛行的時代，投資者不能以長期的表現來判斷其投資組合的成敗，又有何奇怪？

????As we get closer to relegating 2014 to the history books, your local stock market guru most likely couldn’t be happier to see those books slammed shut.

????It’s been one of the worst years for investment decision-making on record, almost across the board. No strategy worked consistently, save for the type of shareholder activism that only a handful of Wall Street’s billionaire titans are able to engage in.

????For almost everyone else, it was a year of frustration against a backdrop of better-than-average returns for the most popular index in the land.

????With a bit of help from Charles Dickens, let’s take a look back at the year in which almost nothing worked:

????It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

????The S&P 500’s total return of 14% this year was 40% higher than its 25-year average annual gain. Wall Street’s chief strategists spent much of the last 12 months revising their targets higher from behind. The index printed over 50 all-time record closes, with nearly all investment management professionals racing to at least pull even. A few characteristics made the U.S. stock market particularly difficult to keep up with this year.

????It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…

????An odd assortment of S&P sectors led the market higher this year, with some strange bedfellows atop the leaderboard. Even if a manager had foreseen that the healthcare sector would gain 27% this year, would they have guessed that utilities would be in the No. 2 slot, with gains of 23%? Unlikely.

????Given that every single Wall Street economist had called for higher rates at the start of this year and 67 of 67 economists surveyed by Bloomberg concurred, the rate-sensitive utilities industry would have been the last sector a rational person would want to overweight. Bets on the financial sector were slow to pay off while wagers on “cheap” energy stocks demolished portfolio performance in the third and fourth quarters, just as they had elevated it during the first and second.

????It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…

????Rounding out the top-performing sectors of 2014 was an unlikely pair: tech (+16%) and consumer staples (+13.2%)—the most aggressive and most defensive areas of the market, running side-by-side toward the finish line, with confounded spectators struggling to concoct a narrative for this. Why would the least cyclical sectors—healthcare, staples and utilities—lead the markets in a year in which unemployment plummeted and GDP growth gained momentum? Much to the chagrin of the pundit class, sometimes there are no satisfying answers. To quote Kurt Vonnegut:

????Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;

????Man got to sit and wonder ‘why, why, why?’

????Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;

????Man got to tell himself he understand.

????If you thought that getting sector over- and under-weights correct at the outset proved difficult, switching between them throughout the year was nearly impossible. A quantitative analyst from Nomura Securities explained to Barron’s in November that “industry leadership has been reversing from month-to-month at a rate unseen in decades of stock-market history. ‘Even if you’re picking the right stocks in a sector,’ he says, ‘things are moving around so much that your performance doesn’t persist.’”

????It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness…

????Getting sector calls right was the least of any investor’s problems this year because, outside of the brilliance of U.S. stock gains, the lights were off around the world.

????With both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq returning over 14% while the Dow and MidCap 400 each kicking in close to 10%, you would assume that passive investors would have an awful lot to celebrate this year. And indeed, they would have, if it weren’t for those pesky overseas stocks that did nothing but drag on the performance of any diversified portfolio.

????With the majority of professional advisors (myself included) preaching the benefits of global diversification to their clients, 2014 looks more like a draw than an outright victory in the harsh light of December’s low winter sun. Consider the fact that, through last week, the MSCI World Index gained just 2% on the year, with nearly 5% drops for both the MSCI Emerging Markets index and the EAFE index of developed markets outside of the United States. Ironically, the single best-performing foreign market in the world, the Shanghai Composite of mainland Chinese equities (up 45%) is the only one that U.S. investors could not actually put their money into.

????Over 10- and 20-year stretches, geographic and asset class diversification have proven beneficial for returns and risk management. Unfortunately, you are not guaranteed to see the benefits of such a strategy during any 12-month period. In an era of 140-character writing and two-minute video, should we be surprised that investors have trouble judging the success of their portfolios over long periods?