I. Stocks: Happy Fourth Anniversary!
Yesterday marked the fourth anniversary of the stock market bull run. The S&P 500 is up 118.3% since it began. The bull market has survived the pandemic, global supply-chain disruptions, rebounding inflation, two oil price shocks, a significant round of Fed rate hikes, soaring bond yields, a financial crisis, Trump's tariffs, and two wars. It has also survived concerns about the market’s leadership being too concentrated in a few outperforming stocks.
Only two of the S&P 500's 11 sectors have outperformed the index: Information Technology (258.1%) and Communication Services (196.7%). The others posted reasonably strong bull-market returns. Keep in mind that the three most underperforming sectors include many companies that pay relatively high dividends to shareholders (charts).
