Thank These Five Stocks as S&P 500 Reaches New Record
Apple, Microsoft, Visa, MasterCard and Oracle are buttressing a market with little breadth.
That double-digit gain isn’t as robust as it seems.
Photographer: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images
If someone woke from a coma and saw that the S&P 500 Index was up 21% for the year and reaching a new record high on Monday, the immediate reaction would most likely be that everything is great. But that’s far from true.
The list of reasons stocks should be down is much longer than the one for why they should be up. The economy has slowed, and a majority of chief financial officers anticipate a recession within a year. Earnings have stopped growing, and estimates are being cut. Stock valuations are high. The U.S.-China trade war has not been resolved. Congress has started an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. On the other hand, the Federal Reserve is easing monetary policy, but that’s only because the outlook has deteriorated.