PUT IN WORK (4/29/2024)

After a brief hiatus, we're back with another issue! The stock market, despite grappling with downward pressure, has shown resilience and is on a positive trajectory. The week before last, which was the market's worst since early 2022, saw the S&P 500 (SPY) down 3.4% and the Nasdaq (QQQ) plummeting by a staggering 5.5%. However, last week witnessed an impressive turnaround, with the S&P 500 surging by 2.7% and the Nasdaq posting an equally impressive 4% gain.

Indices started flat on Monday last week, practically unmoving at market close. Tuesday showed promise as markets climbed 1%, and while Wednesday was pretty unremarkable, it maintained prices from the previous day. On Thursday, however, markets started low as investors feared potential earnings outcomes. These fears eventually faded as earnings rolled out, and markets even reversed and pushed higher after hours, and that momentum was carried into Friday.

Investors have been fairly pessimistic, given the various wars currently taking place, but as of right now, movement indicates a simple correction more than anything. Stocks couldn't keep pushing higher and higher forever, so they've been taking a breather over the last month. Now that investors have some confidence in the future of earnings, we could see this most recent month-long pullback reversed by said earnings.

This week, investors will watch for even more critical earnings capable of changing the market's direction. Companies such as SoFi (SOFI), PayPal (PYPL), Amazon (AMZN), and Apple (AAPL) will be reporting, so keep an eye on those. It appears as if earnings will dominate and determine market movement for the next while, as they tend to do when the time rolls around. Investors also have the April/May Fed meeting to look forward to, which appears to be scheduled for April 30th and May 1st—tomorrow and the day after. It seems we're in for an exciting month! We're both excited and hopeful for the future.

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

PORTFOLIO UPDATE

Our stocks inched higher over the last week, admittedly lacking some of the resilience displayed by the rest of the market for the time being. However, one standout we'd like to bring up is Snapchat (SNAP). Snapchat finally smashed earnings expectations on Thursday, resulting in the stock climbing nearly 31%. We plan to hold all currently owned stocks for the foreseeable future. As always, thank you for reading, and happy investing.