{"id":5394,"date":"2024-04-23T11:12:27","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T15:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bushwealthmanagement.com\/?p=5394"},"modified":"2024-04-23T11:12:35","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T15:12:35","slug":"market-commentary-04-23-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bushwealthmanagement.com\/market-commentary-04-23-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Market Commentary 04\/23\/2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Markets<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investors have been recalibrating their expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a lot going on in the world that could affect the value of financial markets \u2013 wars, tensions between major powers, a strong dollar, and rising oil prices \u2013 just to name a few. Last week, it was Federal Reserve policy. The possibility that the Fed might keep rates higher for longer shook investors, reported Naomi Rovnick of Reuters<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a policy forum early in the week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told the audience:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe performance of the U.S. economy over the past year has really been quite strong. We had growth of more than three percent last year as rebounding supply supported both robust growth and spending, and also employment alongside a considerable decline in inflation. More recent data show solid growth and continued strength in the labor market but also a lack of further progress so far this year on returning to our two percent inflation goal\u2026we\u2019ll need greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward two percent before it would be appropriate to ease policy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the federal funds rate likely to remain at its current level for longer than expected, markets reconsidered how that might affect economic growth and corporate earnings, reported Jacob Sonenshine of Barron\u2019s<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBig investors are not rushing to change long-term holdings, but in a sign of things to come, stock market volatility is around a six-month peak as traders debate how high the U.S. rate\u2026against which financial assets are valued will stay,\u201d reported Rovnick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Standard & Poor\u2019s 500 Index moved lower over the week as investors sold technology stocks on fears that first-quarter earnings reports might disappoint, reported Rita Nazareth of Bloomberg<\/em>. The Nasdaq Composite and Dow Jones Industrial Average moved lower, too, while yields on many maturities of U.S. Treasuries moved higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Data as of 4\/19\/24<\/strong><\/td>		1-Week<\/strong><\/td>YTD<\/strong><\/td>1-Year<\/strong><\/td>3-Year<\/strong><\/td>5-Year<\/strong><\/td>10-Year<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index<\/td>-3.1%<\/td>4.1%<\/td>19.6%<\/td>6.1%<\/td>11.3%<\/td>10.3%<\/td><\/tr>
Dow Jones Global ex-U.S. Index<\/td>-2.6<\/td>-0.5<\/td>4.0<\/td>-3.5<\/td>2.1<\/td>1.5<\/td><\/tr>
10-year Treasury Note (yield only)<\/td>4.6<\/td>N\/A<\/td>3.6<\/td>1.6<\/td>2.6<\/td>2.7<\/td><\/tr>
Gold (per ounce)<\/td>-1.0<\/td>14.5<\/td>19.6<\/td>10.3<\/td>13.4<\/td>6.3<\/td><\/tr>
Bloomberg Commodity Index<\/td>0.1<\/td>4.5<\/td>-4.0<\/td>5.9<\/td>3.5<\/td>-2.9<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

S&P 500, Dow Jones Global ex-US, Gold, Bloomberg Commodity Index returns exclude reinvested dividends (gold does not pay a dividend) and the three-, five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; and the 10-year Treasury Note is simply the yield at the close of the day on each of the historical time periods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources: Yahoo! Finance; MarketWatch; djindexes.com; U.S. Treasury; London Bullion Market Association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. N\/A means not applicable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER (CEO) PAY INCREASED. <\/strong>It\u2019s not an economic indicator, but the compensation companies pay CEOs affects employee, customer, and public perceptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPay is critical for attracting, retaining, and motivating a CEO, and affects the wider company beyond the CEO \u2013 high pay may demotivate employees or damage a company’s customer reputation. Even more broadly, CEO pay across the economy influences the public’s perception of capitalism,\u201d explained researchers Alex Edmans, Tom Gosling, and Dirk Jenter in the Journal of Financial Economics<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, median annual pay for America\u2019s CEOs hit a new record: $23.7 million, an 11.4 percent increase from the prior year, reported Andy Serwer and Angela Palumbo of Barron\u2019<\/em>s. \u201cMedian pay for CEOs in this group is now a record 300 times that of their median employee\u2019s, compared with a ratio of 255 in 2018,\u201d reported Serwer and Palumbo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Serwer and Palumbo cited data from an analysis of the largest pay packages for CEOs at U.S. public companies with revenues of $1 billion or more. (Median is the number in the middle, not the average.) CEO pay at the companies measured ranged from about $162 million to about $19 million in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, how does the increase in CEO pay stack up? It was:<\/p>\n\n\n\n