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The S&P 500 declined -2.91% this week with Friday's close at 3,585.62. We now have the luxury of hindsight, and the summertime rally off the June lows was indeed a "bear market rally". With the S&P 500 finishing last week below its lower weekly Bollinger band and the VIX finishing last week right next to its upper Bollinger band, the ingredients are there for an explosive week one way or the other.
The S&P 500 declined -3.29% this week with Friday's close at 3,924.26. The index has now declined three weeks in a row, falling -8.31% in the process. The index fell flat on its face the final two weeks of August, turning what was a 4.72% monthly gain at the highs of the month on Tuesday, August 16, into a -4.24% monthly loss. What's next? Have a read to find out.
The S&P 500 surged higher by 4.26% this week with Friday's close at 4,130.29. The index traded negatively until Wednesday, but was then off to the races from there. It's safe to say market participants, collectively, loved what they heard from Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday!
The S&P 500's established a trading range between ~3,636 and ~3,945. While the tone of this Update isn't all that optimistic, we do continue to believe the S&P 500 will somehow trade back toward its 100-day simple moving average here in July. Perhaps we're being stubborn and our opinion reflects our bias, but there is just something about how negative and sour the mood is at the moment. It's almost as if collective sentiment believes stocks can't go up, not even for a few weeks...and that's usually when they find a way to go up for a few weeks.
The S&P 500 finished the month of May on Tuesday, closing the month unchanged, rising by 0.01% and closing at 4,132.15. Our work continues to label the primary trend as down, or "bearish". Nervousness is in the air, but whether that nervousness is misplaced would seem to lie in whether or not the U.S. economy does indeed head into recession here in 2022. That will probably determine whether the S&P 500's bottom in May at the 3,810 region is actually thee bottom.
The S&P 500 finished the month of April down -13.31% for calendar year 2022. This marks the single worst start to a year as measured by the S&P 500's year-to-date return through April's monthly close in the history of the S&P 500. Literally, the worst four-month start to a year on record. What's next? Have a read to find out!
