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Holiday Wrap-Up - 2014
Submitted by Ferguson Financial Inc. on November 29th, 2014A look back at 2014 thus far.
The year in brief. When 2013 ended, few Wall Street investment strategists had high hopes for the market – the thought was that the S&P 500 would post a single-digit advance for 2014. In fact, a Birinyi & Associates survey of said strategists produced a consensus forecast for a 5.8% gain for the index this year. Well, here we are with 2014 drawing to a close and the S&P has doubled that expectation – on the eve of Thanksgiving, it was up 12% YTD. The U.S. economy looked pretty good in comparison to many others this year, and Wall Street outpaced quite a few of the overseas markets. The dollar strengthened, which hurt the broad commodities market. The housing sector (inevitably) cooled off, but sales were still up year-over-year. Investors ended up worrying more about the Ebola virus than the end of the economic stimulus provided by the Federal Reserve.1,2