Happy New Year and New Decade! However, I am not so sure investors want to say goodbye to 2019. What a year for stocks and the major averages. In 2019 the Dow Jones Industrial Average (see chart here) gained 22%, the S&P 500 (see chart here) soared almost 30% on the year, the Nasdaq Composite (see chart here) was the best performing major average up 35% and the small-cap Russell 2000 (see chart here) closed 2019 up almost 24%. This is the best annual performance for these key indexes in years. As far as the decade goes, the major averages also soared gaining almost 300%. Not a typo folks the markets almost tripled in value over the past decade.

So as we enter the new year the question now becomes what now? Well it is hard to imagine that we will see a similar result in 2020. Not that I am bearish at all but I do expect some higher than normal volatility throughout 2020. Geopolitic tensions have started to ramp up a bit and in Washington the focus and attention will be on the Senate impeachment trial. As much as the Republicans control the Senate, there is no guarantee that bombshells won’t come out of the trial. This especially rings true if the House Democrats gets witnesses to the stand. We cannot predict what may come out of this trial and I got to believe at times it won’t be pretty. Also, the month of January can be volatile just from the standpoint of how much the markets gained in 2019. I am pretty confident that we will see some institutional and other managed funds book gains here in January.

One other consideration is how the markets as a whole became overbought as 2019 came to an end. All of the aforementioned indexes went into overbought conditions in December according to the relative strength index (RSI). Although there was a brief retreat from the overbought 80 value levels of the RSI, we still remain near the upper end of the charts and I would not be surprised to see some selling pressure here in the month of January.

Good luck to all 🙂

~George