Market Updates

As of mid-afternoon on September 23, the S&P 500 is re-testing the lows it hit in June.  This isn’t unprecedented as the stock market has a history of re-testing lows.  I wrote in August that I expected a pullback, although not to this extent. The culprit is the rapid change in interest rate policy by…

We’ve seen a big and welcomed, rally in stock prices since the end of June.  Since then, the S&P 500 index is up nearly 13%, and some of the laggards from early in the year have become the leaders.  While that is great news, it still does leave the index down more than 10% for…

As we head into the second half of 2022, I wanted to take a moment to look back on what we have come through.  For starters, the first 6 months of 2022 were the worst January-June period for the stock market since 1970.  On top of that, US Treasury bonds, which are usually a safe…

As summer unofficially started last weekend with Memorial Day, so starts what are usually slow trading days in the stock market.  Historically, summer has meant vacations for many on Wall Street, and that has led to lower volumes and markets that, despite heightened volatility, have often ended the summer on Labor Day at about the…

I’m not one to wish time away, but I’m glad that April is over, from a stock market standpoint (and also because tax season is over!).  The S&P 500 lost 8.8% in April to finish off one of the worst January-April periods ever for that index.  The NASDAQ index, which tends to consist of more…

Greetings! I hope that you had a nice March and that you are ready for Spring. In Florence, we’re digging out from our pollen storm, and it’s been a beautiful time to be outside, if your allergies can stand it! In March, US stock were higher after two months of declines to start 2022. The…

March Madness is in full swing, and unfortunately, I’m not referring to the basketball tournament. I save a number of beginning of the year market forecasts from various analysts, and will occasionally look back on them to grade the analysts’ predictions. As I was looking through some the other day, I decided that it wasn’t…

January was a rough month for stocks, as the S&P 500 index of large, U.S. stocks was down more than 5%.  That was the worst start for the index since 2009.  That’s an ominous start–historically there is some correlation between bad Januarys and bad years.  However, the track record not foolproof, since as recently as…

Happy New Year! I hope 2022 is off to a good start for you. I am optimistic that it will be a great year! My indicators are still positive for the stock market and the economy. We are enjoying loose monetary conditions and economic reopening, although the monetary conditions aren’t quite as loose, and the…

At the end of November and in early December volatility has bounded back into financial markets.  A couple of reasons have been cited for this, namely the introduction of the new COVID variant, Omicron, and recent comments by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jay Powell.  In those comments, he has suggested that the Federal Reserve may…