Thoughts On The Market
We hope that this note finds you doing well as Tax Day approaches. Hopefully, you’re nearly complete with your return and may even expect of a little refund in the future. Then again, last year was a good year in the markets so maybe you owe a bit. Either way, we hope your tax matters will be in the rearview mirror very soon! Speaking of timing, if you’re still waiting on tax documents from Raymond James, thank you for your patience! The final 1099s are scheduled for March 15th so you should receive them soon if not already.
You may remember the 1980’s hit movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The lead character played by Matthew Broderick memorably quipped, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” [i]
That’s how we’re feeling these days with President Trump back in the White House; things are happening fast. Like you, we’re living through the impact of what is going on in Washington as it makes its way through the economy, across the global stage, and the stock market. As you might recall, in previous newsletters, we predicted that there would be some degree of volatility in the short term. Yet still, anticipating market volatility doesn’t make it any less unnerving.
Since we cannot possibly know how all the Trump Administration’s plans will play out over the short and long-term, we are doing our very best to stay focused on the fundamentals – the data. And we have much to say about the data which we’ll address in a newsletter soon. For instance, you may remember our comments last year regarding the stock market’s concentration in a handful of stocks. Specifically, the top 10 stocks made up 38.7% of the S&P 500 Index on 12/31/24[ii]. Due to the market’s concentration and many other factors, it’s no wonder we’re off to a rocky start this year. While we stay ever focused and vigilant regarding risk, we see opportunities in the markets today also.
As you know, we like to produce our own newsletters and videos with our own market commentary and that content is in the works. In the meantime, however, we wanted to share a recently written thought piece by Raymond James’ Chief Investment Officer, Larry Adam.
As always, please do not hesitate to give us a ring to discuss the economy, the markets, your portfolio, or even fun movie quotes. We look forward to connecting with you soon and throughout the year!
[i] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091042/quotes/
[ii] Source: FactSet, Standard & Poor’s, J.P. Morgan Asset Management. The top 10 S&P500 companies are based on the 10 largest index constituents at the beginning of each quarter. As of 12/31/2024, the top 10 companies in the index were AAPL (7.6%), NVDA (6.6%), MSFT (6.3%), MSFT (6.3%), AMZN (4.1%), GOGL/GOOG (4.0%), META (2.6%), TSLA (2.3%), AVGO (2.2%), BRK.B (1.7%), and JPM (1.4%). The remaining stocks represent the rest of the 492 companies in the S&P 500.
