The S&P 500 notched its fifth straight weekly decline, dropping 2.1% and closing Friday at 6,368. And just like last week, the effects of the war continue to drive the markets lower as uncertainty mounts and oil and gas prices at the pump surge towards $4/gallon. And since this weeks economic news was on the light side, lets look at the numbers. A correction is defined as a 10% decline from its latest 52-week high. Except for the energy sector, both the Dow 30 and NASDAQ 100 are now in correction territory, with the S&P 500 less than 2% away. As noted above, those five consecutive weekly declines for the S&P 500 mark the longest losing streak since 2022. However, what is concerning is that the last four weekly declines were all greater than 1%, and last week was the greatest with a loss of -2.12%. So what about next week? The Middle Eastern war will surely continue as the negotiation deadline has now been extended to 6 April. Wednesday is the end of the month and first quarter, and market performance is expected to come in with negative numbers. On the economic front the big news will be Marchs payroll and unemployment numbers on Friday, which will then bring us into earnings season. For TSP TIPS we made our third risk-off investment mix change on Monday, which luckily just happened to be a 1% daily gain day. With the I funds loss on Friday, its YTD return moved into negative territory, thereby joining the S and C funds. It also joined the S and C funds in negative Performance Ranking territory. That said, the I fund continues to lead(?) the Composite Score leaderboard(?) with a lowly score of 20. Last week we stated that the Conservative model went 100% cash, pretty much as high as you go. While both the Aggressive and Moderate models will still have a small equity slice remaining, now might be the time to consider moving to the Conservative model and then switching back as the market improves. With three TSP TIPS models, you have the flexibility to switch from the Aggressive to Moderate to Conservative models as the CS and PR decrease, and then reverse that sequence as the CS and PR improve. Just something to consider in these uncertain times. That still pertains with only two more trading days remaining in March.
The S&P 500 notched its fifth straight weekly decline, dropping 2.1% and closing Friday at 6,368. And just like last week, the effects of the war continue to drive the markets lower as uncertainty mounts and oil and gas prices at the pump surge towards $4/gallon. And since this weeks economic news was on the light side, lets look at the numbers. A correction is defined as a 10% decline from its latest 52-week high. Except for the energy sector, both the Dow 30 and NASDAQ 100 are now in correction territory, with the S&P 500 less than 2% away. As noted above, those five consecutive weekly declines for the S&P 500 mark the longest losing streak since 2022. However, what is concerning is that the last four weekly declines were all greater than 1%, and last week was the greatest with a loss of -2.12%. So what about next week? The Middle Eastern war will surely continue as the negotiation deadline has now been extended to 6 April. Wednesday is the end of the month and first quarter, and market performance is expected to come in with negative numbers. On the economic front the big news will be Marchs payroll and unemployment numbers on Friday, which will then bring us into earnings season. For TSP TIPS we made our third risk-off investment mix change on Monday, which luckily just happened to be a 1% daily gain day. With the I funds loss on Friday, its YTD return moved into negative territory, thereby joining the S and C funds. It also joined the S and C funds in negative Performance Ranking territory. That said, the I fund continues to lead(?) the Composite Score leaderboard(?) with a lowly score of 20. Last week we stated that the Conservative model went 100% cash, pretty much as high as you go. While both the Aggressive and Moderate models will still have a small equity slice remaining, now might be the time to consider moving to the Conservative model and then switching back as the market improves. With three TSP TIPS models, you have the flexibility to switch from the Aggressive to Moderate to Conservative models as the CS and PR decrease, and then reverse that sequence as the CS and PR improve. Just something to consider in these uncertain times. That still pertains with only two more trading days remaining in March.