StatWeek

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  21 Industry Groups of the Market Banks Insurance Regional Banking Mining Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Oil & Gas Equipment & Services REITs Software & Services Homebuilders Pharmaceuticals Technology Health Care Services Aerospace & Defence Transportation

 

 

  A solstice occurs when one of the Earth’s poles (today, it’s the north) tilts toward the sun at the maximum angle. The two solstices, in December and June, mark the beginning of winter and summer and give us the longest days and nights of the year. Equinoxes are essentially the opposite of solstices. Deriving from the Latin for “equal night,” the equinox is when the sun is directly over the equator, leading to roughly the same amount of day and night. Spring and fall begin on equinoxes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  The calm before… Considering the backdrop of a potentially havoc-wreaking US government default, stock markets are remarkably  quiet . Indeed, US stocks have been calm all year, swaying only gently from side-to-side on any given day. The sharpest drop in the flagship  S&P 500 Index  came on February 21st, when the market fell  2% . Last year, on the other hand, a 2% drop would have been the  24th worst day , and of course it’s absolutely nothing compared to the  ~8% ,  ~10%  and even  12%  falls that we saw in 2020, during the early days of the pandemic. The  Wall Street Journal  blames the robots for the calm, citing a rise in systematic (algorithm-driven) investors, which have pushed markets higher, as discretionary investors sit on the sidelines. Reasons to (not) worry In addition to the debt ceiling, the current crop of top concerns includes ongoing geopolitical conflicts, still-high inflation, how the impac...