It was a record setting week for the major indices as the S&P 500 closed Friday at 5137. The first three days of the week were flat with Monday getting off to slow start, followed by a 0.17% gain on Tuesday, and giving back that same amount on Wednesday. And then, before Thursdays open, the long awaited January Core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) number came in with an annual rise of just 2.8%, the slowest increase since March 2021. Buoyed by this good news on Leap Year Day, the S&P 500 closed at a new record on Thursday. Thursday also marked the end of February and the S&P 500 now has four straight months of gains. It also was the best month ever for Bitcoin as it was up 43.8% in February alone. On Friday the rally continued even though the February consumer sentiment came in slightly below expectations, and the S&P500 closed above the 5,100 level for the first time and taking the NASDAQ 100 to a new high also. Now lets take a deeper look at those four straight months of S&P 500 gains. Since 1950, this has only occurred 14 times and, as we always like to do, how do the markets perform afterward? In this case its pretty bullish as the average gain for the final 10 months (March through December) of the year has been 14.9%. For the full calendar year (2024), the average has been 21.2%. Besides those nice bullish averages, there has never been a negative period in either the final 10 months or calendar year. For the S&P 500, that gives us a year end number between 5781 and 5902. For TSP TIPS, all three equity funds (C/S/I) hit new 52 week highs on Friday with both the C and I funds making all-time highs. As such, we recommend no changes to our current investment mix.
It was a record setting week for the major indices as the S&P 500 closed Friday at 5137. The first three days of the week were flat with Monday getting off to slow start, followed by a 0.17% gain on Tuesday, and giving back that same amount on Wednesday. And then, before Thursdays open, the long awaited January Core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) number came in with an annual rise of just 2.8%, the slowest increase since March 2021. Buoyed by this good news on Leap Year Day, the S&P 500 closed at a new record on Thursday. Thursday also marked the end of February and the S&P 500 now has four straight months of gains. It also was the best month ever for Bitcoin as it was up 43.8% in February alone. On Friday the rally continued even though the February consumer sentiment came in slightly below expectations, and the S&P500 closed above the 5,100 level for the first time and taking the NASDAQ 100 to a new high also. Now lets take a deeper look at those four straight months of S&P 500 gains. Since 1950, this has only occurred 14 times and, as we always like to do, how do the markets perform afterward? In this case its pretty bullish as the average gain for the final 10 months (March through December) of the year has been 14.9%. For the full calendar year (2024), the average has been 21.2%. Besides those nice bullish averages, there has never been a negative period in either the final 10 months or calendar year. For the S&P 500, that gives us a year end number between 5781 and 5902. For TSP TIPS, all three equity funds (C/S/I) hit new 52 week highs on Friday with both the C and I funds making all-time highs. As such, we recommend no changes to our current investment mix.