Two recent instances when uncertainty seemed low and confidence was high 🌈

Plus a charted review of the macro crosscurrents 🔀

An AI-generated image of rainbows in the sky.

Stocks ticked lower last week, with the S&P 500 declining 0.7% to close at 4,288.05. Down 4.9% in September, it was the worst month for the S&P since December. The index is now up 11.7% year to date, up 19.9% from its October 12 closing low of 3,577.03, and down 10.6% from its January 3, 2022 record closing high of 4,796.56.

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It’s difficult to truly know what’s moving markets in a given day, week, or month.

One thing that’s for sure is there’s always a long list of reasons to be worried and dump stocks. So during those stretches when markets are down, it’s pretty easy to just back into a narrative that seems to make sense.

But have there ever been periods where there wasn’t much for market participants to be worried about?

Two times the market didn’t seem worried 😎

I can recall two times in recent memory when the market environment seemed pretty comfortable.