The Federal Reserve was planning on moving up interest rates another 25 bps to 5.75 percent at the end of 2023. Stocks see daylight at the end of the tunnel and have stopped reacting negatively. Historically, Federal Reserve interest rate hikes have held stocks down, although the December 2015 to December 2018 series of rate hikes to 2.5% did not, perhaps because stocks had been held down for so long after the stock market bubble collapse in 2000. Corporate tax rates were dropped from 35 to 21 percent as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December 2017 as well which may have boosted share prices despite Fed tightening.
Stocks are up 24.2% YTD on Friday, December 29, 2023. Recovering from the 19.4% drop in 2022. Keep looking you might see what's really there.
Friday, January 19, 2024 stocks recover from 27.5% loss (high-to-low) in 2022 and post record high.
Stock market trend:
The Movie
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By the way, in the way of the usual disclaimers, this is a legal reminder that there is no investment advice offered or given anywhere in these products or on the fwdbonds.com website. These are just the things we would like to see before we save, invest, spend, and otherwise plan for the future, which of course is always uncertain.
