US equities, even at current extremely high valuations, still have DDM support. The present dividend yield of the S&P 500 sits around 1.95%, almost double what it was at the start of the century. For the first time since the 1950’s, the dividend yield of the S&P 500 benchmark is higher than the 10-year Treasury yield (1.92%), increasing the appeal of the equity market. Whatever the use of enormous corporate cash balances, there remain many reasons to be enticed by the equity market over the long-term. Defensive sectors like utilities (+25%) and healthcare (+24%) are leading the US sector higher last year, and we believe that the low growth environment keeping the FED monetary policies on hold will bode well again for these sectors in 2015.