By Christopher Liong
•
08 Apr, 2024
Happy belated Easter to all and we hope everyone is okay from the surprise earthquake that only Californians have really come to expect last Friday. With spring technically here and Easter just behind us, it brings to question one of the most famous prognosticators of the last century. No, not Warren Buffet, but Punxsutawney Phil. Unfortunately, his track record is not quite as strong with only a 39% accuracy rate over the past 140 years. With that level of “success” it gives us stock pickers hope just yet! The Market. The broader market as defined by the S&P500 was up 10.2% in the 1Q of 2024, while the Dow was up 5.6%. This strength was mostly a continuation of what we saw in the 4Q of 2023 and was once again driven by the larger technology stocks that are associated with Artificial Intelligence (AI). While the Magnificent 7 continues to attract attention, this performance was more focused than previously and was primarily driven by Nvidia (NVDA) +88%, Meta Platforms (META) +42%, Microsoft (MSFT) +14% (Note: Tesla (TSLA) was -30%, and Apple (AAPL) -8%).