Markets finished January in stellar fashion. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 6.2% and 2.9%, respectively. The Nasdaq Composite finished January up 10.7%, its hottest start to a year since 2001 (though that came in the middle of the dot-com crash when the index ended up finishing the year down 21% before falling another 32% in 2002…so caveat emptor). The US job market continues to surge, and the unemployment rate has fallen to a 53-year low. The Fed, ECB, and BOE all raised rates in the ongoing struggle to tame inflation without tipping the world into a global recession…the IMF seems to think they are on the right track and have lifted their global growth forecast for 2023. All that, and Tom Brady retired (again…for good…we think).
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