Another year is in the books and what a wild year it was. Indeed, 2021 was quite an encore for 2020. We had a riot at the Capitol, vaccine introduction, economic “re-opening”, meme stock rally, the SPAC craze, supply chain snarls, widespread inflationary pressures, the Delta variant and more recently the Omicron variant. Many, including us, thought it would be difficult for investors’ risk appetites to sustain levels reached in late 2020. While some speculative pockets of the market weakened, there was no broad-based let down and we saw surprising gains powered by improved economic growth, accommodative policy and abundant liquidity. The S&P 500® Index finished the year up a stunning 28.7% while the Russell 2000® Index advanced 14.8%. Our equity portfolios also enjoyed solid gains for the year.