WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?
It has been an extremely difficult market and economy to navigate these days but you can clearly stay ahead by reading Global Markets Investor
This analysis was made in mid-June. Please note that some new data has come in. For a complete analysis of the US economy please also read the below article:
Current market situation:
1) S&P 500 has hit 29 all-time highs this year and is up 14%
2) The Fed kept its interest rates steady at 5.5% and projects just 1 interest rate cut in 2024.
3) Fed also has shrunk its balance sheet by $1.7 trillion over the past 2 years and from June slowed the pace of reductions from $95 billion to $60 billion a month.
4) Meanwhile, Fed Chair Powell acknowledged that non-farm payrolls might be a bit overstated.
5) Bloomberg a week ago: Non-farm payrolls were likely OVERSTATED in 2023 by 730,000 jobs.
6) Also, in the last 11 months, the US economy has lost 1.5 MILLION full-time jobs while the part-time count has increased by 1.8 million.
7) US federal debt has hit another historic record of $34.7 trillion with $1.7 trillion budget deficit in the last 12 months.
8) Interest payments on US national debt are on track to hit a whopping $1.6 trillion by the end of 2024.
9) CPI inflation has been above 3% for 38 months and supercore is near 5%
10) US Q1 GDP growth was only 1.3% with Core PCE Price Inflation Index at 3.6%, sharply up from 2% in Q4 2023.
11) Over 55% of Americans believe that the US economy is in a recession.
12) Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia are worth over $9 trillion in market cap, above China's stock market value.
13) Magnificent 7 market cap has reached $15 trillion (equals ~53% of the US GDP) for the 1st time in history and accounts now for 32% of the S&P 500, the most ever.
14) On the other hand, an average small-cap stock has seen a ~16% gain in 4.5% years.
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