New York Times (August 12)
“A sense of calm has returned to global markets on Monday, but the economic conditions that triggered last week’s roller coaster swings are still on many minds ahead of a pivotal week.” All eyes are on “Wednesday’s inflation data.” Economists are forecasting “a slight uptick” in CPI, but the consensus believes the Fed will nevertheless cut interest rates. “With markets on edge, traders see a big potential swing in the S&P 500 after the report comes out.”
Tags: S&P 500
Reuters (August 5)
“The market tumble presents a dilemma as another week of trading is set to unfold.” While buying “during periods of weakness has rewarded investors over the last two years,” with the S&P 500 climbing roughly 50% its low in October 2022. Today, however, “buyers of the dip risk being steamrolled if recession fears grow following last week’s run of alarming U.S. data”, especially as the “S&P 500 has fallen an average of 29% during recessions since World War Two.”
Tags: S&P 500
Market Watch (July 1)
“So far, high valuations haven’t dimmed investors’ enthusiasm for stocks,” but there are concerns. The forward price-to-earnings ratio of the S&P500 “currently stands at 21.1, above the 90th percentile from the past 40 years. The S&P 500 is even more richly valued on a trailing 12-month basis. In the past, when valuations have been this stretched, the median one-year forward return for the index has been -4%.”
Tags: 4%, Concerns, Dimmed, Enthusiasm, Forward P/E, Forward return, High, Investors, Rich, S&P 500, Stocks, Stretched, Valuations
New York Times (June 14)
“Bigger is better in the stock market these days.” In the S&P 500, the largest group of 50 companies by market cap, was the only group “to have positive returns over the 12 months through June 7” while the group of the 50 “smallest stocks in the index had the biggest losses.” Similarly, the S&P100, which features the largest constituents, “is up more than 17 percent” during 2024, while “the Russell 2000, which tracks the small-cap universe, is up less than 1 percent for the year.”
Tags: 2024, Constituents, Index, Largest, Market cap, Positive returns, Russell 2000, S&P 500, S&P100, Small-cap universe, Stock market
MarketWatch (May 16)
“Hold on to your hats. The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly traded above 40,000 for the first time ever Thursday but ended the day shy of a milestone that investors said could help further boost bullish spirits on Wall Street.” The Dow’s attempt to close “above 40,000 comes amid a broader rally that saw the blue-chip gauge, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite ll close at record highs on Wednesday.”
Tags: Blue-chip gauge, Bullish spirits, Dow, Investors, Milestone, Nasdaq, Rally, S&P 500, Wall Street
Wall Street Journal (February 12)
“Stand in the middle of the business district of any big U.S. city and the nearby buildings are emptier and a lot less valuable than they were four years ago. Listed office real-estate investment trusts have already faced the music: The S&P 500 Office REITs Sub-Industry Index has roughly halved in value since before the pandemic. The reality check for banks is just beginning.”
Tags: Banks, Buildings, Business district, Emptier, Halved, Listed, Office REITs, Pandemic, Reality check, S&P 500, U.S., Valuable
The Economist (February 10)
“This year investors in Chinese stocks have been on a hair-raising ride. Even as America’s S&P 500 index reached record highs, markets in China and Hong Kong shed $1.5trn in January alone…. The decline signals a fundamental problem. Investors abroad and at home once saw China’s government as a dependable steward of the economy. Now this trust has seeped away, with severe consequences for China’s growth.”
Tags: $1.5trn, China, Consequences, Decline, Dependable, Economy, Government, Growth, Hair raising, Hong Kong, Investors, Markets, S&P 500, Steward, Stocks, Trust
Washington Post (January 19)
“The S&P 500 hit an all-time closing high Friday.” Up over 1% from Thursday, the index closed at 4,839.81, “surpassing the previous closing record set in January of 2022.” Support stems from confidence in an economy that has averted a recession, apparently achieving an elusive soft-landing. Analysts also “point to an AI-driven frenzy on Wall Street that rivals the dot-com boom of the late ’90s, when investors sought to capitalize on the transformative gains brought by the early internet.”
Tags: AI, Analysts, Boom, Capitalize, Dot-com, Economy, Frenzy, Gains, High, Internet, Investors, Recession, Record Confidence, Rivals, S&P 500, Soft landing, Transformative, Wall Street
Bloomberg (April 1)
“Rarely has the consensus been more uniformly bearish than it is now. Investors are sitting with the lowest allocation to US stocks in almost two decades.” But this extreme is creating a phenomena not seen “during any bear market in the past four decades.” Since “everyone’s leaning one way, big swings are apt to break out in the other…. Small gains can snowball when the worry is missing out on the next big rally.” As a result, “the S&P 500 just finished the first three months of the year up 7%, rounding out back-to-back quarterly gains.”
Tags: Allocation, Bear market, Bearish, Big swings, Consensus, Extreme, Investors, Rally, S&P 500, Small gains, Snowball, Stocks, U.S.
Motley Fool (July 2)
“During the first six months of 2022, the S&P 500 dropped 20.6%, marking its worst first-half performance since 1970” while “the Dow had its largest first-half drop since 1962” and “the Nasdaq… had its largest percentage drop in its history.” This has left “a lot of investors worried, and understandably so. But while things might seem bleak right now, the reality is that investors really shouldn’t panic.”
Tags: 1962, 1970, 2022, Bleak, Dow, Drop, First-half, Investors, Nasdaq, Performance, Reality, S&P 500, Worried, Worst
