, Columnist
Markets Stopped Being Boring in the First Quarter
After February, investors started freaking over almost everything.
Feeling nostalgic yet?
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Our year-end review in early January noted how strange 2017 was: No matter where you looked, there were anomalies, aberrations and just plain weirdness.
Rarely have we seen a stretch where investors made such consistent, steady gains, with stock volatility at its lowest in a half-century. Perhaps the strangest data point: The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was within 3 percent of its all-time highs for 202 consecutive days. The next closest streak was 1995-96, at 116 days, a little more than half as long.