ClientFirst Financial Strategies
Financial Planning and Portfolio Management
It was a quiet week on the stock market market front ahead of July 4th. It was also a quiet week for economic reporting, leaving Nvidia performance—down >2% last week but up 149% year-to-date—as the main market catalyst.
Although all three of the major US stock market indices produced slight gains last week and the S&P 500 breached a new high, it felt as though market momentum slowed!
Like Paul Revere’s famous warning, “The British are coming!,” many economists have been proclaiming, “The interest rate cuts are coming!” The US stock market certainly thinks so as both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices hit fresh highs again last week.
Is the stock market fueling the economy or vice versa? The May unemployment rate rose slightly to 4%, the highest level in 2 years. Yet the jobs market and overall economy seem to be holding steady. And check out stock market performance!
The four-day returns on the major US stock market indices were mixed for the Memorial Day holiday week. Top of mind continues to be the economy’s stubborn resistance to slow down, causing the Federal Reserve to consider higher interest rates for even longer.
Make that four weeks in a row that all three major US stock market indices were in the green. With the S&P 500 trading at 21.24X earnings and the DJIA hitting (but not closing) above 40,000, one must wonder how much higher the indices can climb without a pullback.
All three of the major US stock market indices posted gains for the third week in a row. However, everything isn’t as rosy as the market would have us believe.
All three major US stock market indices posted gains for the second week in a row. Although this past week was volatile like the last, could this be the beginning of a new bullish streak?
It was a volatile path for all three major US stock market indices, although they finished the week in the green. Thursday’s announcement of hotter-than-expected Personal Consumption Expenditure (aka PCE) rattled the stock market and propelled the DJIA down 375 points.
The three major US market indices have been down the past three weeks, for the most part, with the S&P 500 falling below its 50-day moving average. Yet it seems like just yesterday the indices were on a hot streak.