The best 9 days of the year (halfway into 2024)
We are almost halfway into 2024. During this period, the S&P500 is up a solid 11.6%. The funny thing is that all those gains came in just nine trading days. So if you had a crystal ball, you just had to trade on these 9 days, and you could well be rich! Here’s a short trip down memory lane:Jan. 8 (up 1.4%): The S&P 500 largely picked up where the 2023 rally left off after stumbling 1.5% over the first few days of the new year. On that day, $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ also unveiled new AI chips for PCs, sending the stock to a new all-time high.Jan. 19 (up 1.2%): A special thanks to TSMC on that day because its CFO offered an upbeat revenue outlook on its business. Investors took the cue that the semiconductor industry in general may do as well as TSMC.Feb. 1 (up 1.2%): $Meta Platforms (META.US)$ and $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ reported a set of financial results that beat market expectations.Feb. 22 (up 2.1%): The best day of 2024 so far after Nvidia crushed earnings expectations. Other AI-related stocks also enjoyed a good rally.March 12 (up 1.1%): Strong tech earnings, led by Oracle, surging to an all-time high, outweighed disappointment over a hotter-than-expected March consumer price index reading.April 5 (up 1.1%) and April 23 (up 1.2%) April was a bad month for US stocks in 2024. Out of the S&P 500’s 10 worst trading days of the year, 6 of them were in the month of April. But the month still saw two standout days. Neither had any clear catalysts but served as a reminder that any market decline still tends to see up days as valuations trend lower.May 3 (up 1.3%): Apple said they are going to use $110 billion to buy back some of their shares. The stock price shot up 6% after that announcement. Meanwhile, the US also reported a weaker-than-expected April jobs report, which eased worries about the Fed holding interest rates for too long.May 15 (up 1.2%): A cooler-than-expected April consumer price index (CPI) reading and a flat April retail sales report showed that “Bad is beautiful” for the market.If you noticed, there’s actually a pattern in this timeline. It seems that generative AI and an expectation of interest rate cuts are driving market action in 2024. Comment down below on your thoughts!
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