Today's Market Notes - Russian Edition

As with all things, patience is the name of the game in the long run. Below are three notes about today.

• As the market closes, the 2.5% drop we experienced overnight due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been wiped out and in fact the S&P 500 finished up 1.5%.
• The market finishing positive is actually a rare occurrence after the start of an armed conflict, which shows the market anticipated it and that the situation is not as dire as portrayed in the media. (See previous Chart of the Day from February 17th)
• As we expected, our high quality bond reserves are holding up nicely. Our largest bond ETF (SLQD) actually gained 0.05% during the day.

On a side note, the year to date loss on the S&P is 10%, which seems like a large decline especially since last year was the second calmest stock market going back to 1927. However, a 10%+ drop is common and has occurred 19 out of the last 31 years. A 10% or less drop pretty much happen every year.

Finally, even with this decline, the one year return on the S&P is still a strong 9% and an incredible 53% over the last three years.

Feel free to call me or your portfolio manager if you would like to talk further.

Don’t forget to bookmark my blog page with my thoughts and past Charts of the Day.