Message From Our CEO
Happy Labor Day Weekend! I plan on consuming as much college football as possible while catching up on some work. Hope your weekend is as uneventful as mine.
-Kevin
Turning a new page
The stock market in the past month was somehow both extremely eventful and yet boring at the same time. (Schrödinger’s Market if you will.) We had massive declines early in the month, followed by a steady gain since then. This means if you were lucky enough to be on vacation for the month and just checked your portfolio today you’ll see some modest gains.
As highlighted in our mid-monthly article, a growing concern about the performance of the economy has also played a major role in why the market was so unsteady this month. As per usual, the tech sector had a good month to bring the S&P 500 out of its early hole and back into the black.
A major storyline coming from the beloved tech sector is the strong earnings report from our major tech companies. I know you’re sick of hearing about it, but Nvidia’s earnings were the major story this month and drove a lot of other things higher. That comes from the investor’s optimism about Nvidia’s Blackwell AI processor launch, which contributed to the flow of growth.
In the next couple of weeks, Apple will be unveiling their new phones, with a new AI chip that is supposed to “reinvent’ technology. Investors are waiting to see how this will affect Apple’s stock as they have started to gain speed, but it’s too early to say if that will last.
What are watching for next month?
A couple of things to mark on your calendar for the next few weeks:
Next Friday we get the August jobs report – this caused a ton of heartburn last month so we’ll be watching for any signs that the economy might be tipping towards recession.
September 10 (and maybe 25?) – Trump / Harris are set to debate. The most likely outcome is that both sides claim their candidate won and the needle doesn’t move too much, but if there’s actually a big impact on the race then we’ll begin getting some clarity on how tax policy will change next year (more on that as we get closer to the election).
September 18 – the Fed wraps up their meeting and is going to finally begin cutting rates. Effects will be muted at first, but it’s an important symbolic change going forward.
Market Conclusion
Any month we can talk about gains is a good month. Here’s to another one coming up. As always, if you have any questions or need to chat just let me know.