Stocks finished the week on high note even as the U.S. government appeared headed for a shut down. But are the risks for the market growing?
It’s hard to feel that way after a week like this. The S&P 500 rose 0.9% this week after gaining 0.4% to 2810.30 today, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 268.53 points, or 1.04%, this week after advancing 53.91 points, or 0.2%, to 26,071.72. The Nasdaq Composite jumped 1% this week after gaining 0.6% to 7336.38 today. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished the week at all-time highs.
The market has been dispensing new highs like a broken vending machine dispenses candy–the S&P 500 has hit 10 of them so far this year–and sometimes it’s hard to imagine what could go wrong. But imagine we will–or we’ll let James Stack of InvesTech Research do it for us. In a note today, he contrasts this leg of the bull market–the one that began 18 months ago– with what came before. During the first years of the bull, everyone worried about double-dip recessions, the Eurozone debt crisis, deflation, you name it. And there were selloffs galore–14 drops of 5% or more and three double-digit drops that raised the specter of a bear market.
These days, it seems like everything is.