By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 continued its march higher, up 4.3% in the second quarter with 3.6% of that in June. The index has gained 15% in the first half of the year and continues to set new all-time highs. If the objective of investing is to buy low and sell high, [...]
By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 gained 4.8% in May, offsetting the 4.2% dip in April. Year-to-date the S&P 500 is up over 11% while the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index continues to struggle, down about 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average made history on May 17th, closing at over 40,000 for the [...]
By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 gave back almost half of its first quarter gains in April, dropping over 4%. The Federal Reserve held rates steady as US GDP came in well below expectations and inflation remained sticky. The US Postal Service recommended raising the price of a First-Class Forever stamp to $0.73 [...]
By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 got off to a hot start this year, up over 10% in the first quarter, but it may make sense to focus on what hasn’t happened this year rather than what has happened. Coming into 2024, forecasters expected 6 or 7 rate cuts from the Federal Reserve. [...]
By: Matt Garrott February may be the shortest month of the year, but that doesn’t mean it was boring. The S&P 500 was up 5.3%, breaking through the 5,000 mark and new all-time highs. As you can see below, it took the S&P 500 nearly 50 years to make its first 1,000 points, [...]
By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 broke through to new all-time highs for the first time in 512 trading days (over two years). As mentioned in our year-end commentary, all-time highs are not ceilings. Research from Goldman Sachs shows that this is only the seventh time the index has taken over two years [...]
By: Matt Garrott What Happened in 2023 2023 was a surprise to the upside. Inflation dropped, a much-anticipated recession never arrived, and the S&P gained 26.3%. Famed investor Peter Lynch said, “Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections [...]
By: Matt Garrott The story of the S&P 500 this year is the Magnificent 7. That is, the seven largest companies in the index by market cap (it’s 8 tickers because Google has two share classes). The S&P is up over 20% year-to-date, mainly because of these giants: All investment pros had [...]
By: Matt Garrott Investors have had to deal with the drumbeat of an increasingly negative media for years. Most of this should be filtered out as noise, but the recent attack on Israel was impossible to ignore. Words feel small, but our hearts go out to those dealing with fear, anger, and loss [...]
By: Matt Garrott Cash and commodities were the only places to hide in the third quarter as stocks and bonds both posted negative returns. The yield curve remains inverted. A government shutdown has been delayed, but looms behind daily headlines of legislative dysfunction. Strikes are hitting not only Hollywood and Las Vegas, but [...]
