Investors had a terrific Q1. But a third of the way through April, the mood may be changing. While investors remain generally optimistic, they are also watchful as high-flying tech stocks show some signs of deflating. A headline that caught my eye today: “Nvidia has entered correction territory. Apple was already there” (MarketWatch, 9-April). For some months, there has been speculation that we are in a tech Bubble, defined as a period in which stock prices are driven wildly high, completely unmoored from economic fundamentals. And yet we are not witnessing the rabid frenzy we saw back in 2000, when day-trading seemed to be a sideline for everyone with a brokerage account.

Shrugging off uncertainty over inflation and Fed policy, Wall Street celebrated its fourth consecutive winning month in February. The Nasdaq closed at a record high, and both the Dow and S&P 500 turned in the best two months at the beginning of a new year since the pre-Covid days of 2019. Perhaps all this good news makes you feel anxious about what comes next. Will markets continue their climb, or are they primed for a fall? As an alternative to predictions and Fed watching, I encourage you to consider verifiable historical data about market peaks, valleys and recovery times over the past 100 years.

Following the broad-based Q4 stock rally, investors entered 2024 with both hope and caution. Trading was choppy, but by the end of January, the S&P 500 Index notched several new highs and a third consecutive monthly gain. For the first month of the year, at least, confidence in the strength of the U.S. economy outweighed concerns about monetary policy. Whether that confidence will remain intact is uncertain.

Perhaps the most predictable thing about 2023 was that most market predictions would be wrong. Many pundits foresaw a recession, a stalled economy, stubbornly high inflation, job layoffs and more. Instead, the U.S. economy proved to be remarkably resilient, rewarding investors with a stunning stock rally in the final two months of the year. Markets were lifted by a raft of good news, including inflation falling faster than expected, strong U.S. economic output, and a healthy labor market. Driving the year-end surge was the belief that central banks are done with interest rate hikes and will soon begin rate cuts. How that story unfolds remains to be seen.