The Major Markets closed out the month of February mixed. The gains were fairly solid in the Nasdaq and S&P 500, which helped to spur on the gains in the MSCI world index as well.

However, the Dow Jones Industrial average and the emerging markets both ended lower.

The gains in the Nasdaq provided the necessary growth to help the composite reach a new all-time high. This broke the prior all-time high from November of 2021. However, the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average had both already reached new all-time highs earlier this year. As the Nasdaq Composite approached its all-time high, some market participants wondered if the market was due for a pullback.  

The domestic market has had a significant number of weeks of gains recently. Only two weeks out of the last 18 have been negative, giving the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 a healthy start to the year.

Last week’s economic news was also lackluster at best.

New Homes Sales missed expectations Monday. Durable Goods Orders also missed Tuesday, which was followed up by both a miss and a drop in Consumer Confidence. GDP was revised lower to 3.2% from 3.3% Wednesday, and Initial Jobless claims rose Thursday.

This activity helped to temper interest rates, slightly lowering the yield curve.

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The S&P 500® Index is a capitalization index of 500 stock-designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of stock representing all major industries. https://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/sp-500 The Dow Jones Industrial Average® (The Dow®), is a price-weighted measure of 30 U.S. blue-chip companies. The index covers all industries except transportation and utilities. https://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/dow-jones-industrial-average The NASDAQ Composite Index measures all NASDAQ domestic and international based common type stocks listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market. Today the NASDAQ Composite includes over 2,500 companies, more than most other stock market indexes. Because it is so broad-based, the Composite is one of the most widely followed and quoted major market indexes. https://indexes.nasdaqomx.com/Index/Overview/COMP The MSCI World Index, which is part of The Modern Index Strategy, is a broad global equity benchmark that represents large and mid-cap equity performance across 23 developed markets countries. It covers approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each country and MSCI World benchmark does not offer exposure to emerging markets. The MSCI Emerging Markets (EM) Index is designed to represent the performance of large- and mid-cap securities in 24 Emerging Markets countries of the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. As of December 2017, it had more than 830 constituents and covered approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each country. https://www.msci.com/ The S&P GSCI Crude Oil index provides investors with a reliable and publicly available benchmark for investment performance in the crude oil market. https://us.spindices.com/indices Companies in the S&P 500 Sector Indices are classified based on the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS®). https://us.spindices.com/indices