After the low on March 23, the stock market trended up sharply through most of April, despite the increasingly bad economic news being reported. In recent weeks it’s been up and down but fairly flat. This issue of On the Mark explores what seems to be a massive disconnect between the economy and the stock market.

As the market has fairly consistently risen since March 23^rd, some investors feel that this recession led bear market is different than others, and that we have already seen the market bottom.  Model Capital Management, one of the Portfolio Strategists we utilize for client accounts, disagrees.  Following are some notes from their commentary from their May 15 update written by Roman Chuyan, CFA…

I have said many times that the main long term driver of the stock market is profits. But in the shorter term various types of news can move the markets significantly.

As economic data has been released this month, the news has been very grim.

Markets have climbed despite growing negative economic data since the federal government added a ton of stimulus into the economy. Have things bottomed out in the market? In a recent commentary regarding an asset allocation change, this is what JP Morgan, one of the Portfolio Strategists we utilize for client accounts, wrote…

Often in client reviews we talk about how there are things we know and things we can’t know for sure in the economy and markets. This is true particularly for our current situation with unknown factors being heightened due to the unusual cause of the current recession. Today I share an insightful article from AssetMark Chief Investment Officer Jerry Chafkin called “How can investors make decisions when so much is unknown?”