PUT IN WORK (9/30/2024)

The stock market has experienced yet another phenomenal week in the wake of the most recent Fed meeting, with most indices climbing higher and some even posting new all-time highs for the second week in a row. The S&P 500 (SPY) is one such index, ending last week up 0.5% and briefly touching a new high on Thursday, where the index was up as much as 1.1%. The Nasdaq (QQQ) performed favorably, closing out Friday with a 1% gain, but it failed to reach a new high.

Investors have been eager to make money over the last few weeks, with stocks rising all across the board. On the other hand, analysts continue to display varying conflicting opinions about the current, former, and future state of the markets. Some predicted that this momentary incline would occur, and others inferred that the opposite would happen—the same can be said about their future predictions. All in all, analysts are never always right, and more often than not, they’re right half the time. No one truly knows how things will play out in the market, which is a belief we’ve both held and expressed many times in past issues.

That being said, it’s now the belief of some analysts that the upcoming jobs report we’ll receive this upcoming Friday could spell disaster if data proves too strong. Furthermore, the 50-point cut that the Fed dished out at the last meeting could appear too big for investors, giving the impression that we won’t see inflation hit 2%—which was the target—for quite some time now. Analysts and investors alike are consequently already looking to the next Fed meeting, which is over a month out. Some even believe that sometime in 2025, we may see more severe rate hikes to balance out what could potentially be seen as aggressive cuts, especially if they continue through the end of the year. Ultimately, no one knows what will happen to the market, but we’re hopeful nonetheless.

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

PORTFOLIO UPDATE

While most of our stocks saw some excellent upward movement, one of them—Rocket Lab (RKLB)—saw huge gains of over 30% just last week. The company saw a significant change in a new COO, Frank Klein, who had previously fulfilled various managerial roles at Mercedes-Benz (MBG). Additionally, KeyBanc (KEY) rose the company’s price target to $11. Aside from that, the rest of our portfolio performed just as well as the rest of the market. We plan to hold all currently owned stocks for the foreseeable future. As always, thank you for reading, and happy investing.