Market Trends

After a 26% total return from the S&P 500® Index in 2023, few predicted 2024 would deliver another big year of gains for U.S. stocks. But it did. Not only did the S&P 500 post a 25% return for the year, but the index reached 61 new all-time highs. Together, 2023 and 2024 form the

Have you ever written down, at the start of a year, predictions for what will happen in the year ahead? For investors, taking note of your beliefs about the market or economy and then coming back later to inspect can be a good exercise in understanding the difficulties of forecasting. It’s a lesson we can

I often note that the biggest risks in life are not in the stock market. If you want real risk, I say, get married. And if you want more risk, have children. People laugh because the point is obvious. Yet that point is regularly lost when we speak about financial well-being, neglecting life well-being. Financial

In recent weeks, several Wall Street market strategists have warned of lower expected returns for U.S. stocks over the next decade. Current valuations have been a common basis for these pessimistic views. The difficulty of predicting the absolute level of future stock returns over any period, particularly short periods, is well documented (see Welch and

Key Takeaways Japanese stocks experienced a historic single-day decline in early August. However, the market rebounded rather quickly. The decline was followed by a spike in global market volatility, with the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) reaching levels seen only during major financial crises. Historically, as with this example, keeping focus on the long-term and staying