2017 will go down as one of the most remarkable years for the US Stock market on record. The Dow Jones closed with 71 record highs which is a record in itself. The Dow posted a record high almost every three days. The S&P 500 posted gains of 19.4% with near-record low volatility while enduring geopolitical tensions, massive natural disasters, political turmoil in Washington and a tightening of monetary policy. In fact, the market currently has the calmest price fluctuation in 50 years, with the S&P 500’s average (daily up-or-down moves) a mere 0.30%. As a comparison, this is over half the move last year and almost a sixth (1/6) of the average daily move in 2008. It’s the smallest absolute daily move average since 1965; we had to trace back to 1964 when S&P 500 average daily move went below 0.3%. (Figure 1).
Historically the summer markets coincide with tight ranges and low volume. Trends seem to dry up, markets trade in tight ranges, and short-term opportunities can be rare. For instance, the past 30-day range in the SP 500 has been the tightest range since 1995. That particular market led to a 180% rally in the stock market over the […]
By Bryen Deutsch, Portfolio Manager, IASGPosted January 16th, 2013 One of the adages in the grain pits at the Chicago Board of Trade states “the best cure for high prices is high prices; the best cure for low prices is low prices.” Simple economic theory makes this saying understandable. When grain prices run to extreme […]
by Tyler Resch, Portfolio Manager, IASGPosted December 18th, 2012 As the temperature outside rapidly drops along with the volume in the market it is starting to dawn that 2012 truly is drawing to a close. We entered the year on the heels of record volatility, the largest bankruptcy the futures industry had ever seen, and […]
With summer winding down many investors are wondering what Q3 has in store for its final month. August was a relatively quiet month especially when we compare to August 2011 when the market had 3% swings numerous times a week. In contrast this summer in general has been a return to the summer slump we […]