Weekly Market Commentary

Markets Falter as Dow Slips and Election Looms

Posted on October 31, 2024

Markets Falter as Dow Slips and Election Looms

The Major Markets struggled last week with only the Nasdaq managing to eek out a slight gain.  The Dow Jones fell the hardest as its narrow company concentration worked against the index last week. While only 224 companies reported earnings, over 100 of those companies are constituents in the S&P 500 and many also are found in the 30 company Dow Jones Industrial Average. Another 40% of the S&P 500 are set to report their earnings results this week. 

Regardless, the pullback last week broke the winning streak for the domestic market. The loss of nearly a percentage point over the five trading session ended the six-week winning streak the blue-chip index began in September. 

As reflected generally in the Nasdaq, the S&P 500 Sectors showed more clearly how Consumer Discretionary and IT were the only areas of positive performance last week. The remaining 9 sectors saw red, with Materials giving back four percentage points. 

But the Earnings Calendar will not be the only thing that will weigh heavily on the market over the next couple of weeks. This week stands as one of the busier weeks with economic events including the JOLTS report, Consumer Confidence, GDP, and Employment data to name a few. Additionally, next Tuesday stands as Election Day which could add some uncertainty to the markets. 

 

Major Markets

YTD as of 10/25/2024  
  Nasdaq  
  Dow Jones Industrial  
  S&P 500  
  MSCI World  
  MSCI EM  
  Russell 2000  
  Bar US Agg Bnd  
     

S&P Sectors

  YTD as of 10/25/2024
 
  Comm. Services  
  Cons. Discretionary  
  Cons. Staples  
  Energy  
  Financials  
  Health Care  
  Industrials  
  Info. Technology  
  Materials  
  Real Estate  
  Utilities  
     
    Agent/Broker Dealer Use Only  

Presidential election odds have been all over the board this year. 270toWin’s Electoral Map shows 93 electoral votes are still considered a toss up as of the end of last week. That said, the modified version using Polymarket’s betting method places the presidency back in the hands of President Trump. Polymarket has been an interesting new mix to this election season given that a number of headlines have been written based upon the overseas gambling market that is presently illegal stateside. CNBC reported that one French trader bet over $28 M across 4 accounts which have significantly shifted the betting odds, and perceptions, around this election as a result. 

Meanwhile, Treasuries rose last week as the intermediate to longer durations rose 10 to 20 basis points week-over-week. This pulled fairly heavily on the bond market that saw the Bloomberg Barclays Agg index lose just shy of a percentage point. While the next FOMC Meeting will be next week, the event kicks off on Election Day with another 25-basis point cut to the Fed Funds rate expected AFTER the votes have been cast. Time will tell what headlines will garner the most attention next week when the results of the next 7 to 10 days are fully realized. 

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast

https://polymarket.com/elections

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/24/polymarket-trump-french-election-bet.html




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

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