”It’s official. We’re in a bull market” / ArticleNice to report some good news.
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The S&P 500 rallied Thursday to end the day in a bull market, marking a 20% surge since its most recent low, reached on October 12, 2022. That brings to end the bear market that began in January 2022. Buoyed by gains in big technology stocks, the broad-based index closed at 4,293.93 and crossed the threshold that separates a bear market from a bull market — that’s investor-speak for a period of time marked by rising stock prices and optimism on Wall Street. Investors are certainly in a buying mood: CNN’s Fear and Greed Index hit ‘Extreme Greed’ Thursday. Markets have remained surprisingly resilient over the past nine months, as 2022 losers like tech and media have bounced back from a disastrous year on hope that the worst is over for those industries.”
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I bought SPGP this week to keep an oar in on large caps.
Also put a few kopeks in FMIMX, RWJ and SYLD. Probably won't add up to much. But I'm comfortable holding value and small caps.
And the way RWJ and SYLD go, they're pretty much an E-Ticket ride.
So that's fun.
Yeehaw
Major indexes bottomed at different times in 2022, & their status in 2023 are also quite different.
DJIA +17.89% (low in 10/2022)
SP500 +20.04% (low in 10/2022)
Nasdaq Comp +29.62% (low in 12/2022) (was +19.46% in 02/2023)
DJ Transports +20.02% (low in 09/2022) (was +30.34% in 02/2023)
IWM/R2000 +15.67% (low in 06/2022) (was +22.68% in 08/2022, +22.19% in 02/2023)
DJ Utilities +9.76% (low in 10/2022)
Early movers R2000, Nasdaq Comp, DJ Transports reached the bull market (+20% from prior low) first, but now SP500 has made it, and DJIA may follow (& Dow Theory followers declaring a new bull market). Forget about DJ Utilities. Note that there was a powerful move in early-2023 - some called it a huge "thrust", then a minor dip, and then the debt-ceiling fiasco only restrained the markets (i.e. didn't harm it).
My wife is the only one of us with a 500 index fund, which is in her taxable portfolio. Over the past 12 months it has been outperformed by GRID, FIW, IHDG, and CGW in addition to tech sector funds. She has PSCC in her IRA. And that has beat the 500 over the past year, and over its lifetime. So those are a lot of consumer, health, and industrial stocks, a fair number of which aren't even in the 500.
Of course there are duds too. It's hard to beat the market. So it's no wonder people are talking about T-Bills and CD's when they are paying over 5%. That's a lot of headwind for stocks that don't pay dividends, and might not be growing reliably in an inflation-for-longer environment.
Seemed like few of the folks quoted in the article cited in the OP seemed enthusiastic about the new bull.
Nasdaq Comp is growth and tech-heavy. Market-cap weighted.
SP500 is a blend (of growth and cyclicals) and is broader. Often, the market-cap weighted SP500 SPY is compared with equal-weight SP500 RSP to see how the broad market is doing.
https://stockcharts.com/h-perf/ui?s=SPY&compare=RSP&id=p26386927283
What I see … on one hand many denigrate the S&P - some favoring cash over it. While, at the same time, Vanguard’s S&P index fund (Admiral shares / VFIAX) is the second largest mutual fund in the U.S. with an AUM of $808.8 billion. Only their Admiral shares Total Market Index fund (VTSAX) surpasses it in size.
Source
A paradox - Nobody wants to own it. But everybody appears to.
Enjoyed Randall Forsyth’s classic opening salvo.
”To have and to hold”, legions of June brides and grooms around the world will vow in the words originated in the Book of Common Prayer. The Federal Reserve similarly is likely to be on hold, at least insofar as its monetary policy is concerned. But, as its fellow central bankers in Canada and Australia have shown recently, this is apt to be anything but a long-term commitment.
What is Barron's cover history for a signal?
I thought the following from WSJ talking about bullish sentiment is comical for the picture they chose to use -
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-06-09-2023/card/stocks-are-going-up-investors-don-t-want-to-miss-out--BfAjWQoFrUUMrEiRXacg
To my eye that is a clear cow not a bull!
With NYU and Columbia education, all in NYC, is it possible Gunjan Benarji has never seen cattle to know the difference?
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/bull-standing-in-field-royalty-free-image/200455053-001
YBB Personal Finance
@YBB_Finance
The image seems mislabeled by Getty Images (I found it by Google search) as a bull, but several people verified that it's a cow! The WSJ may get a refund from Getty Images.
Otherwise, cows are running on Wall Street.
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/bull-standing-in-field-royalty-free-image/200455053-001
But it looks like a steer to me. Or maybe a Ken Bull.
It’s pretty evident the editors thought they had a baby bull - regardless of appearances.
I gotta go.
Oh, The market? I tend to think Barron’s has the overall picture right, (no pun intended), perhaps a year out. But I don’t think they meant to say markets won’t go lower first. Nor do they mean there won’t be a recession sometime in the next year. Likely there will be. I don’t invest on those kinds of projections anyway. I’m mostly statically allocated at my age, meaning I pretty much keep hands off. With the small 20% that I still allow myself to fiddle with, it’s tilted slightly in favor of fixed income vs equities. If markets steam ahead, I’ll raise the fixed income even higher and reduce equities further.
The Journal has a cow.
Thought everyone was talking about the big blue critter.