2020 will certainly be a year not soon forgotten. Not only from social, political and health perspectives, but from economic and investing viewpoints well. Regarding the US stock market, the Standard and Poor’s (S&P) 500 climbed almost 70% since its March low and finished the year up over 18%.
There is no doubt that this result defied expectations; the S&P 500 had a better year than its historical average of around 10%, despite a near 35% decline from the February peak to the March bottom.
While equity markets fared well, the broad economy is not nearly fully recovered. Millions more people are unemployed than in the beginning of 2020, and the US recession that began in February has not been officially categorized by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER – they are the official body that categorizes economic cycles) as over.
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