PUT IN WORK (1/27/2025)

The stock market has defied the odds again, with investors pushing the Nasdaq (QQQ) and S&P 500 (SPY) higher for the second week straight. The former ended up 1.5%, and the latter ended up 1.8%.

Although it was a short trading week and, consequently, a week of low trading volume, investors still managed to hold onto the momentum garnered in the previous week. Tuesday’s positive movement can be majorly attributed to Trump’s inaugural address, where he assured the people of America that he would take further steps to reduce inflation and develop new energy sources. He also announced that he would focus on AI infrastructure, calling attention to stocks such as Nvidia (NVDA), Amazon (AMZN), and Alphabet (GOOGL).

Oracle (ORCL) was up by a solid 6.5% by Wednesday’s close, with the company being directly mentioned by Trump. Oracle is set to work alongside companies such as Microsoft (MSFT) to start Trump’s $500 billion AI infrastructure project. Again, AI-related stocks such as Nvidia, Amazon, and Alphabet climbed higher. Thursday was another extension of this several-day winning streak, with earnings coming out quite positive overall on top of the aforementioned attention on AI-related businesses. These factors combined pushed the S&P 500 higher, marking a new all-time high for the index.

Friday was a little different as stocks slid, bringing the S&P 500 down from its high alongside all other major indices—as for the week, though, the market came out ahead once again. This week will see many more companies report earnings: AT&T (T), Tesla (TSLA), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), and Visa (V) are just a few of the big ones. Needless to say, it’s gonna be a doozy, especially with the upcoming Fed meeting which will take place tomorrow and Wednesday.

(Nasdaq ETF (QQQ) price from January 2023 - 2024 — each candle is 1 week. Chart provided by tradingview.com.)

PORTFOLIO UPDATE

Our stocks went up alongside the market, with some of our big gainers regaining a large portion of what had been lost the week before the last one. We plan to hold all currently owned stocks for the foreseeable future. As always, thank you for reading, and happy investing.