PUT IN WORK (4/1/2024)

We hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and a beautiful Easter surrounded by friends and family. It's time for the markets to open back up and to see what investors have in store for us this week. Admittedly, there isn't much news to cover this time, partially due to the short trading week and partially because—well, that's just how it is at this time of the year! In other news, the market had a somewhat lackluster week, which isn't inherently bad. The Nasdaq (QQQ) ended down 0.6%, while the S&P 500 (SPY) ended up 0.3%.

As we were saying, this isn't a bad thing despite both indices moving very minimally in different directions. Seeing the market stabilize after the monstrous run it's been having is actually comforting. This means it can finally find reliable footing rather than wildly swinging in either direction due to investor uncertainty and volatility. Another immediate upward swing across both indices could be bad for the market, so we were happy to see minimal movement, especially in the face of a short trading week.

We mentioned that there isn't much news this week, and that's true—but why? Well, the most obvious bit of information is that we had a three-day weekend, meaning there was no trading on Friday and that the week as a whole was pretty light on volume. Another reason for that lack of news can be attributed to the markets' most recent earnings. To put it plainly, this earnings season is essentially coming to an end, and most prominent companies that investors looked to for guidance reported weeks ago by this point.

Additionally, investors got what they'd call good news at the last Fed meeting, which we discussed in the previous issue. To briefly recap, the Fed maintains that three cuts will take place before the end of 2024, news that comforted investors. It seems they'll stay comforted until the next Fed meeting, which takes place on April 30th and May 1st. The market appears to be finding some neutral ground as stocks other than the big seven are beginning to catch up in gains, and the closest event that might bring change to the market is the March Jobs Report, which will be revealed this Friday, April 5th. As things stand, investors are expecting strong growth, but only time will tell.

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

PORTFOLIO UPDATE

Our stocks actually beat the market all around last week, with the majority going up 3-10%. We're happy to see some of our underperforming stocks slowly but surely catch up to the market at large, and we're still on the lookout for any new buys, even in these unprecedented times. We plan to hold all currently owned stocks for the foreseeable future. As always, thank you for reading, and happy investing.