The View from 5th Avenue – 23 May 2022

Strictly going off the calendar it wasn’t that long ago (January 2020) that the S&P ended a streak of 70 consecutive trading sessions without a move up or down of more than 1%, but emotionally speaking it feels like at least a century ago that markets were that quiet (I can think of one or two developments in the interim…) The truth is in the volatile markets of 2022, even a +1.9% gain on the S&P (the biggest since last Tuesday!) doesn’t necessarily warrant a ton of attention, and with that today fit the bill of “one of those Mondays” where most market conversation focused on what’s to come later in the week.

The View from 5th Avenue – 18 May 2022

Woof… It’s hard to know what to say on a day like today as markets posted one of the ugliest declines in a year that’s unfortunately been chock-full of them C in fact (in the spirit of precision) it was the worst single-day performance for the S&P since June 2020. Red basically everywhere you look, but the sell-off was especially demoralizing given it marked a screeching halt to the much-discussed “bear market bounce” before it really even got started.

The View from 5th Avenue – 3 May 2022

Today’s choppy trading wasn’t the typical pre-FOMC “wait and see” action, but relative to the stomach churning swings of late the S&P’s 1.3% intraday range almost (again, that’s almost ) felt like a bit of a reprieve. Of course US indices’ gains appear embarrassingly modest in light of the recent damage that’s been done, but after a late pullback from the abyss yesterday, the back-to-back positive sessions at least suggest that investors have gotten a little more comfortable in their positioning ahead of Powell’s presser.