Bulls Vanquish Bears; Outlook Promising For Stock Market | Opinion
Published April 5, 2024
The U.S. stock market officially entered bull market territory in the first quarter: a 20 percent increase in the S&P 500 from its previous low. By that measure, and according to the S&P Dow Jones indices, the current bull market began on Jan. 19, 2024.
The S&P was up 10.2 percent for the first quarter of 2024 and closed at record highs 22 times during that period – the most since the first quarter of 1998. The Nasdaq rose 9.1 percent and reached record highs three times. The Dow Jones average was up 5.6 percent, with 17 record highs, and was closed in on crossing the 40,000 threshold for the first time. More good news for bulls: of the 16 times the S&P 500 has risen 8 percent or more in the first quarter from 1950 through 2023, only once did the index lose ground for the remainder of the year. That equates to the market having risen 94 percent of the time in years with such powerful first-quarter gains.
Robust economic indicators and company earnings reports are fueling the stock market rally. U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023. For a developed economy, annual GDP growth is expected to be 2-3 percent. The tendency of stocks in the same sectors to move in the same direction has fallen to low levels, and the equal-weight S&P held its own against the market capitalization S&P. This means that individual company performance is having the most impact on share prices, as the market broadens out from being driven only by AI news. It also means that the indexes […]