There is no better way to describe it – 2021 was a historic year for the markets. After more than a decade of inflation running below the Federal Reserve’s stated 2% target level, the trifecta of rising wages, supply-chain disruptions for many goods and trillions of dollars of government largesse combined to push inflation steadily higher as the year progressed.
As the pandemic appeared to be slowing down, the new highly contagious COVID-19 Delta variant flared this summer causing a momentum slowdown in the third quarter dampening investor enthusiasm. The list of additional concerns included higher inflation, rising interest rates, lofty equity valuations, supply-chain bottlenecks, Federal Reserve policy changes and the chaos in Washington over President Biden’s two massive stimulus proposals and changes to the tax code to pay for them.
Hard to believe but we’ve made it to the midpoint of the year already! When reflecting on the markets during the first half of 2021, it is important to understand both where we are and where we were at this point last year.
We have all endured the COVID-19 pandemic for over a year now, and the one-year return data is beginning to reflect the significant come back we have witnessed in the stock market. It appears fiscal policy has effectively bridged the income gap between massive job loss in the services sectors and the broad vaccine distribution that has hastened the reopening of the economy.
U.S. stocks turned in a second consecutive quarter of dramatic gains, continuing a historic stock market recovery that few predicted in the depths of the March downturn. The S&P and Nasdaq Composite scored a string of records in the third quarter which has confounded many investors with its sheer velocity and strength.
When this quarter began, the stock market was just beginning to pick itself up from one of the worst
and quickest declines in history. The 34% decline from February 19 to March 23 this year was an
indication of just how weak the economy would be in the second quarter.