Thank God, It’s Over

Tale of the Tape

Good evening, everyone. Happy freakin’ New Year!! 🥳

The markets barely budged as we turn the page on the most unprecedented year ever.

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average both closed at new all-time highs while the Nasdaq and Russell 2000 are only a stone’s throw away. Will this market rally roar into 2021? 🦁 Place your bets…

Here are the closing prints:

S&P 500	3,756	+0.64%
Nasdaq	12,888	+0.14%
Russell 2000	1,974	-0.26%
Dow Jones	30,606	+0.65%

The major market indices all surged. Here’s the YTD performance for the major indices:

✧ S&P 500 $SPX △ 16.42%
✧ Nasdaq $COMPQ △ 43.64%
✧ Russell 2K $RUT △ 18%
✧ Dow Jones $DJIA △ 7.31%

And the YTD performance for each sector:

✧ Technology $XLK △ 43.50%
✧ Cons. Discretionary $XLY △ 29.61%
✧ Communications $XLC △ 29.96%
✧ Materials $XLB △ 20.44%
✧ Health Care $XLV △ 13.31%
✧ Industrials $XLI △ 10.97%
✧ Cons. Staples $XLP △ 10.13%
✧ Utilities $XLU △ 0.52%
✦ Financials $XLF ▼ 1.74%
✦ Cons. Staples $XLRE ▼ 2.16%
✦ Energy $XLE ▼ 32.67%

See a few yearly charts below.

Although stocks are trading fresh highs, the economy needs to catch up. Jobless claims slightly declined week over week after 787,000 filed initial claims.

Here’s the chart from FRED:

The Roaring 20s

This year has been unbelievable— WWIII, Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crash, widespread social unrest, the pandemic, the election..the economy…the stock market.

But will the next decade bring back the Roaring 20s for round 2?

In American history, prosperous eras typically follow periods of distress or war. That’s why some analysts say 2021 will bring a “post-war euphoria” to launch us into a new golden economic era.

After all, the last time we had the Roaring 20s, it was after the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and 1919. And let’s not forget— the Dow tripled in value during the Golden Age of the 1950s after WWII: