Annuity Buzz

With 2021 half over and most states fully reopened after pandemic shutdowns, the economy continues to rebound. Economists are expecting strong GDP numbers for the rest of the year and a historically strong 2021 overall.

Although there’s still a lot of uncertainty about the state of the U.S. economy, the Fed, at least, expects a strong recovery this year. So while we are somewhat optimistic based on the current economic tailwinds, we still recommend caution.

The adage that “the market climbs a wall of worry” was probably never truer than it was during this past year. After an initial sharp decline in March, the markets spent the rest of the year recovering from those losses and tacking on additional gains to boot.

Markets rallied during the second quarter of 2020. The unprecedented federal stimulus measures more than offset an otherwise brutal global economy. But it’s impossible to predict what the markets will do in the next few months.

We all witnessed the economic volatility during the panic phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Future market direction will depend on news of virus containment and the governmental response. For investors with a long enough time horizon, the best action in this kind of situation has always been to stay the course.

Given the strong year for markets overall, you may not remember that 2019 started with tremendous uncertainty. Also, for the first time in over 170 years, the United States closed an entire decade without experiencing a single recession.

The third quarter of 2019 was mixed for markets throughout the world. U.S. large-cap equities, as represented by the S&P 500 Index, gained 1.70% for the quarter and are now up 20.55% year-to-date.

The U.S. economy has shown growth for 121 consecutive months since June 2009. Unfortunately, our GDP growth may be slowing down. Goldman Sachs predicts that the European Central Bank will lower its deposit rate by 20 basis points and restart quantitative easing in September.

The stock market rebounded sharply in the first quarter, roughly making up for losses during the fourth quarter of 2018. Economic news didn’t change substantially over the last three months, but market sentiment clearly did.

For the year as a whole, the U.S. market experienced strong returns. This was despite a particularly destructive hurricane season which, according to Moody's, resulted in combined U.S. property damage of over $200 billion. Another one of the most remarkable things about 2017 was the complete lack of market volatility. But perhaps one of the biggest surprises was the stability of Eurozone politics after years of disarray.