video transcript

The Daily Digit today is $297.3 billion. This is how much money investors put into low-yielding, but safer bond funds in 2012. The reason? The doomsday thinking that dominated markets in 2012. At times it seemed the euro would collapse, the bottom would fall out of China's economy and the United States would lurch back into a recession. The irony- more risky stock funds attracted just $13.56 billion in new cash despite double-digit gains for the S&P 500. But those who did take risks in 2012, did remarkably well. The total return, including dividends, of the benchmark S&P 500 through December 27 was 15.3 percent while financial stocks rose 29 percent after tumbling in 2011.