Market Drama

Featuring Zoe CEO & Founder, Andres Garcia-Amaya, CFA

July 1st, 2024 
Watch Time: 3.3 minutes
    • Welcome to this week’s Market Drama!

Stock Market Updates:

  • S&P 500 was flat this week.
  • Nasdaq did a little bit better, up 0.2% for the week.
Halfway through the year, we can evaluate how the first six months looked for the stock market:
  • S&P 500 was up 14.5%.
  • Nasdaq was up 18.1%.

Really strong start: This year would put the stock market in the top seven years over the last 35 years. Not only have the markets gone up, but they haven’t been that volatile (the average VIX has been 13.8, which is the lowest since 2017).

What are the drivers of the market going up?

  1. Earnings have delivered better than expected.
  2. Inflation is starting to come down (even though it is taking longer than expected).
  3. U.S. economic growth has not gone into a recession.  
What sectors have driven the market performance? 
The gains have been led by technology stocks, communication services, and financials. The only sector that’s down this year is real estate, but it’s heavily concentrated. Technology stocks have accounted for 30% of the returns this year. 
 
Economic Updates:
  • Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Index came out showing an annualized rate of growth of 2.6% in May, which was lower than April. It’s the slowest we’ve seen for inflation in more than three years for this metric. 
  • Consumer spending rose as expected. 

Coming Up Next Week:

  • June payrolls
  • Manufacturing PMI data
  • Release of the minutes from June 11 and 12 meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve. 

Stay tuned for next week.

– Andres

Disclosure: This material provided by Zoe Financial is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to serve as a substitute for personalized investment advice or as a recommendation or solicitation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Nothing in these materials is intended to serve as personalized tax and/or investment advice since the availability and effectiveness of any strategy is dependent upon your individual facts and circumstances. Zoe Financial is not an accounting firm- clients and prospective clients should consult with their tax professional regarding their specific tax situation. Opinions expressed by Zoe Financial are based on economic or market conditions at the time this material was written. Economies and markets fluctuate. Actual economic or market events may turn out differently than anticipated. Facts presented have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Zoe Financial, however, cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of such information, and certain information presented here may have been condensed or summarized from its original source. 

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