I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!
In case you actually left your home for Black Friday shopping (as opposed to shopping online), you may have missed the fact that the markets had their own Black Friday. Potentially troubling news about a new Covid-19 variant combined with relatively light trading and reduced market hours resulted in a market decline of over 900 points on the Dow. Weekend headlines screamed – the worst day in the markets in all of 2021. That is true, but let’s keep things in perspective. For much of November, the markets have been trading at or near all-time highs. And even with this plunge, the S&P 500 is only 2.4% below its all-time closing high recorded on November 18th.
Below is a chart showing the S&P 500 from January 4th of this year through Friday. Even with Friday’s move lower, the market is still trading at levels from earlier in November and well above levels from the beginning of the year.
Market down days can be created by panic selling but also by having buyers sit on their hands and wait. My sense is that the latter was the case on Friday. Uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 news coupled with people not actually paying much attention to the markets, led to many potential buyers deciding to opt out of trading. Fewer buyers lead to lower prices.
We’ll know more about the new Covid-19 variant in the coming week or two and can decide later if we need to do something. My expectation is that we will not, but time will tell. In the meantime, enjoy the days and weeks ahead as we all hope for a very Merry Christmas!
If you have questions or would like to talk, please let me know.
