After a short week of trading, all major global equity indexes finished the week with negative performance. In the US alone, a tumultuous four days were highlighted by Amazon briefly joining Apple as the second company ever to reach a 13-figure valuation, CEO’s of major technology companies testifying before congress about data security again, public attacks on large tech companies like Google and Amazon from both sides of the political spectrum, and two board members departing from Tesla. As has been par for the course internationally for the last 6 months or so, trade discussions dominated concerns as the US, Mexico and Canada work towards replacing NAFTA. Additionally, emerging markets equities continued to sell off as fears of contagion increased.

Weekly Returns

S&P 500: 2871.79 (-1.0%)
FTSE All-World ex-US (VEU): 50.52 (-3.0%)
US 10 Year Treasury Yield: 2.94 (+0.08)
Gold: 1196.32/oz (-0.4%)
EUR/USD: 1.156 (-0.03%)

Major Events

  • Monday – Markets Closed in observance of Labor Day
  • Tuesday – Amazon joins Apple as the second company to reach a $1 Trillion valuation (ultimately closing the week down 3.01%)
  • Wednesday – The Technology sector drops 1.5% amid regulatory concerns
  • Thursday – The MSCI Emerging Markets Index enters bear territory, down over 20% since reaching an all-time high in January
  • Friday – Tesla shares fall 6.30% after Chief accounting Officer Dave Morton resigns after one month on the job and videos surface of Elon Musk appearing to smoke marijuana during an interview
  • Friday – President Trump signals readiness to initiate tariffs on an additional $267 Billion in Chinese goods

    • Our Take

    While this market volatility may be a change from the past two years or so, it is normal over the long term and is something we account for when we construct investment portfolios. For context, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) which measures the implied volatility of the S&P 500 index, has a historical mean is close to 20, and historical mode is between 12 and 13. We spent most of 2017 below 10 and finished this week at 14.88.

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