Plenty more happened last year, of course. But looking at\njust this list, I think it is fair to say that 2021 was far from normal. If a\nperson categorized the last year as crazy and unusual, I\u2019d understand why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The Key to Managing Volatility in Q1!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s easy for investors to get caught up in\ndaily headlines, uncertainties and twists and turns in the market. This year,\nlet\u2019s change the narrative! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here at Zacks, we recommend focusing on factors\nthat can impact your future investments. To guide you, we are offering all\nreaders a look into our just-released January 2022 Stock Market Outlook\nreport.<\/strong> This report will provide you with our forecasts along with\nadditional factors to consider:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have $500,000 or more to invest and want to learn more about these forecasts, click on the link below to get your free report today!\u00a0 ______________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that wasn\u2019t the case for stocks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As you can see in the chart below, the smooth upward\ntrajectory of the S&P 500 looks anything\nbut <\/em>crazy and unusual. In fact, the S&P 500 charted new highs throughout\nthe last year without much volatility at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest decline for 2021 happened from September 2nd to\nOctober 4th, when the S&P 500 fell by -5.2%. A pullback earlier in the year\nsaw the market dip by about 4%. Considering that the average intra-year\ncorrection for the S&P 500 is -14% (average from 1980 to 2021),3<\/sup>\ninvestors are hopefully cheering the relatively smooth ride stocks delivered in\n2021. There were 109 trading days with a bigger than 1% move (up or down) in\n2020. In 2021, that number fell by about half to 55.4<\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, even though 2021 felt like it was filled with twists, news headlines, and crazy narratives, for well-diversified equity investors it was arguably a nice respite. Investors who stayed the course with a diversified portfolio of stocks likely experienced very average volatility with what I would consider above-average returns. Looking at just the S&P 500, stocks finished the year up +27%.5<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many in the financial media have been harping on the seeming\ndisconnect between stocks\u2019 performance and craziness in the news headlines. But\nin my view, it\u2019s not at all crazy that stocks continued to rise even as\neconomic sentiment soured \u2013 it\u2019s normal<\/em>.\nAt the end of the day, corporate earnings went up while sentiment about the\nstate of the economy continued to fall. Said another way, U.S. corporations\nraked-in record profits while the wall of worry rose \u2013 perhaps the most classic\nrecipe for strong stock market performance, in my view. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bottom Line for\nInvestors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking more closely at individual stocks, sectors, and\ncategories could easily make the case that there was plenty of volatility in\nthe equity markets in 2021. Value stocks rallied hard relative to growth stocks\nin the first half of the year, only to see growth surge in the second half of\nthe year. Energy stocks swung pretty wildly from 2020 to 2021, and many of the\nTechnology sectors\u2019 best names in 2020 lagged in 2021. The list goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My overarching point in this week\u2019s column, however, is that\ndespite a year beset by uncertainties and twists, equities broadly delivered\nstrong performance with relatively normal volatility. This outcome does not\nmake 2021 a crazy year for stocks and the economy \u2013 it makes it a normal one,\nin my view. When the mood in the news is that the economy is suffering, but\nU.S. corporations are quietly delivering better-than-expected earnings and the\neconomy is growing quite strongly, I would expect stocks to go up. That\u2019s what\nwe saw in 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Knowing this, it\u2019s better to prepare your investments for the long-term, instead of being pressured to make short-term financial decisions. Remember to stay focused on the long-term view and factors that can guide you through the process. To help you stay focused on the facts, I am offering all readers our\u00a0Just-Released January 2022 Stock Market Outlook Report.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ll discover Zacks\u2019 view on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have $500,000 or more to invest and want to learn more about these forecasts, click on the link below to get your free report today! Last year certainly had plenty of twists and turns, but the stock market as a whole delivered solid performance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mitch-on-the-markets","category-private-client-group"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10222,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10098\/revisions\/10222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
IT’S FREE. Download the Just-Released January 2022 Stock Market Outlook<\/a>2\u00a0<\/a><\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/1_pic1-2-1024x395.png\")
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