11/18/2023
Weekly Stock Market Recap I S&P 500 November 2023 Summary
11/4/2023
November 17, 2023, Weekly US Equity Market Return Recap. Stocks continued their rise upward on the week with the S&P 500 up 2.2% and the Nasdaq finishing +2.4%; the Dow also closed positive, at +1.9%. First, November has historically been a upward month for the US stock market, with the S&P 500 gaining on average +1.7% in November going back to 1950, ranking the top month for positive returns in the year. Second, the economy showed further signs of slowing with the core CPI declining to only +0.2% month-over-month. Further, stock earnings remain stable, with the third quarter’s year-over-year blended earnings growth coming in around 6.6%. However, excluding the energy sector, the growth rate for the index is 12.0%. The stock market sentiment has a bias now for the Fed to pause, and perhaps start cutting rates at some point in 2024. This conviction is reinvigorating money flows into stocks. Yet, Fed Chair Powell comments on Thursday, “We are not confident” that the benchmark rate is sufficiently high to reduce inflation to 2%, the Fed’s target, runs counter to the pause and cut-rate theory. Indeed, Powell also commented “We know that ongoing progress toward our 2% goal is not assured. Inflation has given us a few head fakes along the way.”