PUT IN WORK (1/8/2024)

We’re back after a long, long holiday season! We hope everyone’s Christmas and New Year’s were full of joy and cheer with family and friends, and we hope the market has been kind to you, too. Stocks took a tumble over the last week after a nine-week winning streak that showed investors are hopefully ready for whatever 2024 has to offer. Last week, the Nasdaq (QQQ) ended down nearly 3.1%, while the S&P 500 (SPY) ended down a lesser 1.6%. Although this is undoubtedly a sizeable chunk, let’s try to put it into perspective.

In the nine weeks prior, the stock market saw incredible gains ranging from 16-18%, and indices blew through a former level set in June. Some pullback was, of course, to be expected. What caused the market to fall this last week can be chalked up to a few things, but one of these reasons sticks out more than the rest: the recently released December Fed minutes.

Although the Fed said nothing particularly new, it was more explicitly stated by Fed speakers that if it comes down to it, there’s still the possibility of further rate hikes in 2024. Previously, most investors were under the impression that hikes were entirely off the table for the upcoming year, but these minutes revealed otherwise. As we’ve mentioned many times, investors fear uncertainty, which is exactly what investors experienced after this information was conveyed more explicitly.

Furthermore, it’s more than likely that the most recent jobs report has given some investors a false narrative. Though numbers appear great, some fail to consider that we’re exiting the holiday season. Naturally, job numbers surrounding the holiday season are sure to look much different than those outside of the holiday season—let alone the biggest holiday season of the year.

Investors are ultimately left with a choice: what will they do in these uncertain times? Well, commonly, they sell stocks and take profits, and that's what we saw last week. Futures are currently down across the board, but if that’s the direction investors will continue in in 2024, only time will tell.

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

PORTFOLIO UPDATE

Our stocks rose and fell with the overall market, with last week being the worst week we’ve had in some time. We’ve still seen some incredible upside over the last few weeks, and we hope to see more in the near future. We plan to hold all currently owned stocks for the foreseeable future. As always, thank you for reading, and happy investing.