Most investors are happy to get 2022 behind them, as the S&P 500 Index experienced its worst year since 2008’s financial crisis, down 18.1% on a total return basis. High growth tech-stocks fared even worse, with the NASDAQ Composite experiencing a 32.5% decline and Small Cap Russell 2000 stocks were down 20.4%.

The S&P 500 Index fell its third consecutive quarter for the first time since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago. Last year the Fed believed that inflation was “transitory”, but that has proven not to be the case.

The U.S stock market ended the quarter officially in bear market territory, down more than 20% for the year. While there have been multiple factors causing the market to experience its worst first half of the year, since 1970, the cause can be really be synthesized into one word: inflation.

During the first quarter, U.S. stock markets recorded their first quarterly loss in two years and the U.S. bond market suffered its worst quarter in 40 years. The start of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hiking cycle, persistently high inflation, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, combined, creating a volatile quarter for both stocks and bonds. The Fed Becomes [...]

U.S. stock markets recorded their third year of consecutive gains in 2021, with the major indexes posting double-digit returns and the S&P 500 Index was up a whopping 28.7% on a total return basis. Investors “ac-cen-tchu-ated” the positives of economic recovery and vaccine rollouts.

The month of September traditionally is a “spooky” month for the market. Over the past 25 years, the S&P 500 average monthly return for September is -0.4%. But the September Effect also extends globally, perhaps attributable to a change in investor sentiment as we move from the carefree days of summer into the profit harvesting months of Fall.