Monthly Archives: February 2024

The Weekly Update

Week of February 26th, 2024
By Christopher T. Much, CFP®, AIF®

Stocks vaulted to new heights last week on the back of an artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor company, marking investors’ belief that AI has the potential to transform the U.S. economy.

Stocks Rally To Record Highs
Stocks traded in a fairly tight range for the first half of the short week, yawning at the lack of economic data while awaiting earnings results from one key company that creates chips that power the artificial intelligence operations of many firms.

A strong Q4 corporate report and long-term message from Nvidia Corp. pushed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to new closing highs on Thursday.

Nvidia’s market cap rose by $277 billion on the news, pushing it to a $2 trillion valuation. To put that in perspective, Nvidia’s market cap is now roughly the same size as Canada’s economy. Its 16% gain on Thursday was the …

The Weekly Update

Week of February 19th, 2024
By Christopher T. Much, CFP®, AIF®

Stocks fell last week as investors reacted to disappointing inflation updates and other economic reports that fell short of estimates.

Stocks Snap Winning Streak
Markets were quiet Monday but opened lower Tuesday in response to the January inflation report that showed higher-than-expected consumer prices. But stocks regained some momentum on Wednesday and rallied Thursday despite disappointing reports on both retail sales and industrial production for January.

News of higher-than-expected wholesale prices on Friday put investors back on edge and kept stocks from ending the week on a positive note. The weekly loss broke a five-week winning streak.

Inflated Perspective
Consumer Price Index data was one of the big pieces of news driving markets last week, with January’s numbers coming in at 3.1 percent compared to a year prior—cooler than December’s 3.4 percent year-over-year gain but warmer than the 2.9 percent consensus. Jittery …

The Weekly Update

Week of February 12th, 2024
By Christopher T. Much, CFP®, AIF®

The stock market experienced solid gains last week, concluding the trading week on a positive note, thanks to robust corporate reports and favorable inflation news; this propelled the S&P 500 Index to achieve a new record high at the end of the week.

S&P Tops 5,000
At the start of last week’s trading, stocks faced downward pressure due to comments by Fed Chair Powell over the weekend, signaling that the Federal Reserve had no immediate plans to initiate interest rate cuts. Consequently, the yield on the two-year U.S. Treasury notes, highly influenced by monetary policy, increased to its highest level in two months.

By the end of trading on Monday, stocks had regained a significant portion of their previous losses. Influencing this market rally were positive corporate earnings reports. This trend continued throughout the week, contributing to the overall market …

The Weekly Update

Week of February 5th, 2024
By Christopher T. Much, CFP®, AIF®

Stocks pushed higher last week as investors cheered mega-cap tech corporate reports and a better-than-expected employment report.

Stocks At New Highs
At the beginning of the week, stocks surged, anticipating fourth-quarter corporate updates from tech companies and the Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting; this led to the S&P 500 Index reaching a new record high on Monday.

The market remained relatively stable for the rest of the week until Wednesday, when the Federal Reserve announced its decision to maintain interest rates within the 5.25-5.50 percent target range. The Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) news unsettled investors, who anticipated that rates would remain unchanged but expected more specific guidance on the Fed’s plan to lower interest rates.

On Friday, the job report for January revealed the addition of 353,000 new jobs, surpassing the forecast of 185,000. This strong report did not negatively …