Health of the economy hinges on the desire and ability of consumers to spend.
Risk On case needs to prove its point.
At one level it is easy to be enamored with last week’s rally. It was the best weekly gain for the S&P 500 since November 2020 and for only the fifth time in the past decade, all 72 industry groups in the S&P 1500 (24 large-cap, 24 mid-cap and 24 small-cap) were up on the week. Curiously, all five of those times have come in the wake of the COVID lows. But despite those impressive price gains, the risk off environment remains intact. The trend in the NASDAQ 100 is under the most pressure it has dealt with since the Financial Crisis. The same can be said for the passive portfolios that many investors seem to think only trend higher over time.
