Volatility (often measured by the VIX index) has been relatively higher since mid-July, as expected for this part of the year. However, the stock market indexes haven’t been down as much as Seasonality would normally suggest this far into September. That’s not to say...
August 2024 Market Commentary
Things are getting interesting out there in the market. August started off with a drastic sell-off, led by the NASDAQ and Technology sectors. Other indexes like the S&P 500 and Russell 2000, and even bond indexes, eventually followed. Then, as if there was no...
July 2024 Market Commentary
The second half of 2024 started off well enough for most global stock markets. That is, until we hit mid-month, and what had been the clear leaders so far this year became the weakest parts of the market. Technology and Communication sectors had been exceptionally...
June 2024 Market Commentary
We are just about at the halfway point of 2024, and so far, there is a surprisingly large rift between what is working and what is not. It should be of no surprise that any index that has included Nvidia (NVDA) stock has done well this year. And if not, then not so...
May 2024 Market Commentary
While the market is looking good so far year-to-date, most of that “goodness” happened in January and February, and now the market has been sideways (hasn’t really made any progress) since mid-March. April gave us a classic 5% pullback in the S&P 500, and May...
April 2024 Market Commentary
We are finally seeing the small pull-back or “correction” in the broad markets that we had been expecting since the year began. So far, the S&P 500 has had a fairly classic 5% pullback that started right as the month began and lasted until the 19th. What has to...
March 2024 Market Commentary
We are now 25% through 2024 and it has been a pleasant surprise so far, especially after the higher volatility market we’ve seen over the past couple of years. A calm market tends to slowly grind up. And as we’ve observed before, the upward movement in this market...
February 2024 Market Commentary
We are two months into 2024 and we’re back to a very separated market – meaning only a select few segments of the stock market are positive, while others (Small Cap stocks and much of the bond market) are negative. But that doesn’t (yet) mean that the market trend...
January 2024 Market Commentary
It’s a new year and the momentum of the stock market is attempting to carry through into the new year. The first three days of 2024 were down, but once we got through the first five days, the S&P 500 was only slightly negative (basically flat). There are...
December 2023 Market Commentary
We’re now looking at the end of 2023 and wow, what a year it was. Until the last couple of months, so much of the market had just gone nowhere. But the November run up (which was seasonally expected) and the continued run up in December (not as seasonally expected)...
November 2023 Market Commentary
After a challenging time for most stock market indexes in August and September, the seasonal October low happened a bit later than we expected. We had noticed a pattern where the market lows for the Fall season tended to happen in the first half of the month, as they...
October 2023 Market Commentary
The month of October can often be a challenge. At some point in this “spooky” month, major seasonal bottoms tend to happen. October also signals the end of the “Sell in May…” part of the year. Historically, mid-October to late-April is the strong half of the year...