Weekly Market Bites

end of week markets update

1) The stock market has had a pretty chill week, with little volatility.

The big headline? The NASDAQ hit 20,000 for the first time ever. Meanwhile, there's been some worrying talk about S&P500 breadth decreasing and being led again by the MAG 7 stocks.

Over in crypto, Bitcoin’s been hovering around $100,000 without much action, and ETH has started to make a comeback.

Here’s a summary of this weeks action:

2) Around this time of the year Wall Street Strategists at the big banks and research shops come out with their 2025 estimates for the S&P 500.

For 2025, their targets are all between 6,500 and 7,000, suggesting potential gains of 7% to 15%. These projections often come with intriguing analysis and get a lot of attention in places like CNBC and Bloomberg TV.

And I am going to hopefully save you some time by confirming what you’re already might be thinking - these forecasts are useless. At the end of the day, even the so-called experts have no clue what’s actually going to happen.

For example, if we look at what strategists were saying back in Dec 2023 about 2024 it turned out they where all way off!

The worst prediction came from JPMorgan 🤣 - the best and biggest US bank.

Although the long term average of S&P500 annual returns are around 8-10%, returns every given year are lumpy.

The average up year is around 21% and average down year is around minus 13%.

3) This week the NASDAQ hit the big milestone of 20,000 for the first time ever.

YTD the NASDAQ is up around 35% 🚀 

Here’s a memory lane of every 1k incremental gain the index has made in history:

4) The whole crypto universe is tough to wrap your head around. And 2024 is year it’s been hard to ignore.

Crypto stands opposite to everything that is taught in traditional investing: valuing businesses, focusing on cash flow and earnings, avoiding overpaying, and so on.

So, combined with all the wild headlines and chaos, it’s easy to dismiss it. I know I did for a long time.

But here’s the thing: something is happening in that space that’s drawing the attention of a lot of very smart, respected people.

At the same time it’s success is hilarious when most of the specific predictions about it’s use (like it becoming a currency) have been wrong.

5) Even though it’s been a great year for the S&P500 index overall. It hasn’t been a good year for every company in the index.

In fact, over 100 stocks are down. These ten, with some of the most well-known names out there, are the worst of the worst:

charts

How long can the current bull market last?

This bull market just reached it second anniversary, and by some measures it should still have plenty of years to go.

Once upon a time the London Stock Exchange was a competitor to the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ.

Now its hard to find the LSE on the map.

And finally, some parting wisdom

One of the greatest dilemmas of our time will be dealing with the infinite amounts of information and data coming at us from all directions. Every day.

Figuring out how to stay informed without getting lost in all the noise will play a huge role in the quality of life we will have.