December has been anything but a good month for bullish investors. With indexes falling as much as 16% intra-month, we were on the cusp of a bear market. There’s even the possibility we might still enter a bear market early 2019. However, these threats seems to have been delayed. This Christmas, the bulls must have been extra good as Santa brought us some powerful gains following the holiday. From December 26th to December 31st (the time of writing) the major north american indexes, the S&P 500, Dow Jones, NASDAQ, and TSX Composite have clawed back 7.5% to end the year. In fact on the 26th, the Dow Jones rose over 1000 points in intraday trading, or about 4.9%. This made it the largest single day gain in the Dow’s 134 year history.

Short Lived

Sadly this Christmas miracle likely won’t be enough to keep the markets bullish. Investor concerns over the rate hikes by the federal reserve and Trump’s unprecedented attack on the Fed, specifically Jerome Powell, hold steady. Not to mention China/US trade war tensions are still present despite assurances from both governments that they are working towards an agreement. Other factors are present that lean in the favour of bearish investors going into 2019, such as the yield curve inversion, sinking consumer confidence, and the late cycle input inflationary potential. But let’s hope this after Christmas run continues into the New Year and holds out for as long as it can, as there’s still a little gas left in the markets yet.

Thanks for a great 2018!

We just wanted to take a moment here, on our last article of 2018 to thank each and everyone one of you who has read, liked, shared or supported in anyway shape or form. We started this blog 6 months ago and couldn’t be happier with the progress we’ve made and the support we have received. So thank you to all for the support, and we can’t wait to reveal what we have in store for 2019!

Happy New Year!
– The Stock Boys