Finally, A Losing Week… Now Everyone Can Relax

Monument Wealth Management Weekly Market Commentary and Financial Wealth Management Blog

The eight-week winning streak for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500) has ended.  Down by a very small fraction for the week, which technically rounds to a 0.0% return, it was a loss, nonetheless. So now, everyone can relax.  Especially the bears.  While the week looked like it was going to be a sharp loser, positive economic data had the market rocketing back on Friday.

Below are our two standard charts that review the previous week’s performance across the major benchmarks and for the ten sectors of the S&P 500 index.

Weekly Market Returns 12-9-13

Note that the chart below is RELATIVE to the S&P 500, so each bar shows how much more or less each sector returned verses the S&P 500.  Utilities were the obvious winner relative to the S&P 500 while Consumer Cyclical was the worst performing sector.

Weekly Sector Returns 12-9-13

Bubble?

The below chart from J.P. Morgan shows that a +20% year on the S&P 500 happens 30% of the time. It’s not an insignificant amount of years either, the data go back to 1897… or 116 years.

Annual Price Performance - One in Three Years 12.9.13

There is an oil production boom going on in the U.S. We are producing more than eight million barrels a day.  See the chart below.  Couple this with the fact that we produce a lot of Natural Gas and that gives U.S. manufacturers a huge leg up on production over foreign competitors since energy costs are some of the largest input costs to manufacturing.

4 Week Average U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil 12.9.13

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Investment advice offered through Monument Advisory Group, LLC a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA).
The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which investment(s) may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. Stock investing involves risk including loss of principal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is comprised of 30 stocks that are major factors in their industries, and widely held by individuals and institutional investors. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index (S&P 500) is an unmanaged capitalization weighted index of 500 stocks designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of 500 stocks representing all major industries. The NASDAQ Composite Index measures all domestic and non-U.S. based common stocks listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market. The market value, the last sale price multiplied by total shares outstanding, is calculated throughout the trading day, and is related to the total value of the Index. The Russell 2000 Small Stock Index is an unmanaged index generally representative of the 2000 smallest companies in the Russell 3000 Index. The Russell 2000 is an unmanaged index generally comprised of companies with lower price-to-book ratios and lower forecasted growth values.  The 2, 10 and 30 year Treasury is simply the yield at the close of the day.

(1)      West Texas Intermediate crude spot price is as of end of week.

(2)      London Bullion Market Association; gold fixing pricing at 3 p.m. London time.

 

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David B. Armstrong, CFA

President & Co-Founder

Dave got into the industry when he discovered his passion for finance in his mid-20’s. He’s a combat veteran and served as an officer in the United States Marines Corps on both active duty and in the reserves, retiring at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. While serving on active duty, Dave was unable to spend money on deployments, so he became a self-taught investor. Along with a few bucks cash as a bouncer, his investing performance grew to be good....

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