This Is No Time for Drama
Slow and steady wins the race.
It was in doubt almost all the way to 4:00 p.m. ET, but the S&P 500 managed to close up 0.10 percent and make a new all-time closing high for the 35th time in 2024.Progress has been slow this year. Although the S&P reached the halfway mark with a gain of more than 15 percent, we saw just 14 trading days with gains of 1 percent or more.
And there’s been just one trading day with a gain of more than 2 percent this year.
At the same time, we’ve seen only seven trading days where losses were 1 percent or worse.
So progress has been steady this year too.
As Ben Carlson of Ritholtz Wealth Management notes, “Bull markets are typically boring like this. Uptrends tend to be these slow, methodical moves higher.”
And “gradual improvements” don’t make for entertaining headlines. If it’s something other than building wealth you’re after, be careful.
“Bear markets, on the other hand, are where the excitement happens,” Carlson writes. “Downtrends are full of both big down days and big up days.”
And the twain shall meet today as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell makes his way from 20th Street and Constitution Avenue up to Capitol Hill for testimony before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
On Wednesday he’ll present his prepared remarks and answer questions from the House Financial Services Committee.
It is an election year in the US, so Senators and Representatives will be that much more eager to score points for their respective parties.
The Fed Chair will take a pounding from partisans, and that’s OK. It’s part of the spectacle, and as a guy who’s been operating in and around DC for decades Powell knows how it works.
It’s going to get noisy over the next couple of days.
Remember, though, that we happen to be right in the middle of the best three-month period during election years for the S&P 500.
And looking beyond these two days we have the onset of an earnings-reporting season that will provide some light and perhaps some more upside momentum too.
