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Stocks continued the April pullback yesterday as stocks gapped lower and while they fought back to close off the lows, the indices did post solid losses on the day. Higher yields hit the small caps particularly hard as the S-fund lost 1.5% on the day. The C and I-funds gave up about half of that, and bonds were down for a second day, although like stocks, they closed near the highs of the day.

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Last week the stock market pulled back early in the week but moved higher heading into the holiday weekend. Now we started a new week, a new month, and a new quarter on April 1st and, as the market loves to do, it took my repeated reminders that early April tends to be strong, and threw that on its head. It wasn't a terrible day with the Nasdaq closing positive and the S&P down just modestly, but the small caps, which had been leading recently, got slapped down on a day that seasonality followers ...

Stocks ended a choppy week of trading with some flat to mixed results on Thursday. We saw small gains in the Dow and S&P 500 (C-fund) while small caps led and the I-fund was down on another rally in the dollar. The F-fund was down as yields moved higher. We saw some good returns in the stock market in March making it 5-straight months with a gain for the S&P 500. That's actually a good sign.

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Greetings

March 2024 was yet another phenomenal month. Compared with the previous 63, this March 2024 ranked 21 of 64 with a 3.10% monthly gain.

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While it's still too early to make a call, based on YTD data (31 years filtered) we might speculate (or project) a yearly 96.8% win ratio with an average gain of 18.58%.

___The chart below shows where we currently fall within the 63-year historical YTD range. Here we can ...

The personal-consumption expenditures price index (PCE) results went public during the market's day off on Friday. The PCE landed right in line with expectations with a yearly climb of 2.5%. The market typically likes predictability, but this inflation data did little to change the projections for a rate cut in June. In fact, the chances of a rate-cut in June are down from a week earlier.

The market celebrated the Fed’s message in the Federal Open Market Committee’s ...