Michael Santoli

Mike Santoli gives a stock market scouting report covering a few relevant themes at play heading into the second quarter.

Saturday marks four years since the Covid crash culminated in a 35%, five-week S&P 500 loss as the economy shut down.

How much of a good thing is too much for the stock market?

This was the month when the crowd shifted decisively from fighting the bull to embracing it.

The market skeptics are busy flagging what they see as parallels between today and 1999, the year the ’90s bull market went parabolic and sentiment came unhinged.

When the S&P was at roughly today’s level two years ago, little did investors know it was walking into the nastiest inflation episode in 50 years.

Stocks have begun 2024 in a prolonged pause, the market digesting the two-month late-2023 surge with mostly benign sideways index action.

The S&P 500 closed 2023 up nine straight weeks and a 24% annual gain.

Sunday is the second anniversary of the all-time closing high in both the Nasdaq Composite and Nasdaq 100 indexes.

The S&P 500 rally off the late-October low now amounts to 7.2% in two weeks.

Last week’s 2.6% slide in the S&P 500 also reflects the more disorderly risk-fleeing action that follows a broken uptrend.

The stock market’s prolonged pullback from its 2023 highs began in July just as the 10-year Treasury yield began its steep ascent from 3.75% to 5%.

Mike Santoli discusses where the market stands one year from the low of the 2022 bear market.

A rough two months have tested the market’s uptrend and challenged investors conviction that a soft economic landing was in sight.

The burden of proof is growing on the market optimists, Mike Santoli writes.

Did the “soft landing” occur six months ago, at least in market terms?

The uncommon strength of the early-year rally has undercut the longstanding bear case on stocks along a few fronts.

Market confidence that the Fed is just about done is combining with an overall decent level of economic activity and companies trying to defend profit margins.

The early 2023 rally is nearing a point where the bear market could plausibly be declared over.

The market continues to act as if investors entered 2023 light on risk and ill-positioned for positive economic outcomes.