Market Commentary by Mitchell Wood, Larson COO

The Major Markets closed mostly higher as four out of the five indices added green. This was a welcome change for the S&P 500 which managed to break the three-week losing streak that characterized much of August. Despite the week’s gains, the index still sits with the greatest monthly losses going into the final trading days of the month. Economic news was mixed last week. Existing homes sales came back slightly below estimates, while new home sales slightly exceeded them. The housing market continues to be impacted by a reduced inventory of homes as well as higher interest rates.

As of Thursday, Freddie Mac reported that the 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average in the United States hit a 22-year high at 7.23 percent.

The last time that the 30-year fixed rate was this high was in June of 2001.

For Treasuries, rates steepened as investors braced for news out of Jackson Hole. On Friday, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell addressed interest rates in his prepared remarks saying: “We have tightened policy significantly over the past year. Although inflation has moved down from its peak—a welcome development—it remains too high. We are prepared to raise rates further if appropriate, and intend to hold policy at a restrictive level until we are confident that inflation is moving sustainably down toward our objective.” Consumers weighed in on the sentiment with the University of Michigan Sentiment Index. The August reading of the Index of Consumer Sentiment fell slightly with the reading of 69.5. This week, investors will see the revision of the Q2 GDP report followed by the BLS Employment Situation. Market participants will continue to ponder this information as the season changes into fall. https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20230825a.htm

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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