By: Matt Garrott Despite the usual myriad of things to worry about, market returns were strong in the third quarter. The S&P 500 gained 5.9%. The Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index rose 5.2%. A diversified portfolio benefitted from strong small and midcap returns as well as international equity strength. Kicking off the fourth [...]
By: Matt Garrott August was the seventh month this year with positive returns for the S&P 500 (April being the outlier). Up 2.4% on the month, the S&P 500 is up 19.5% on the year, including dividends. Market headlines continue to be dominated by the AI story as Nvidia is up over 100% [...]
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 [...]
