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The market was hoping for more than a statement from the G7 this morning, but that’s all it got for now.  As a result, positive action in the futures market quickly headed south.  Things have bounced back quite a bit from the initial reaction as current indications suggest a modestly weaker open…for now.

Read today’s Bespoke Morning Lineup for the latest on Biden’s surge in the political polls ahead of Super Tuesday, news on coronavirus, and the latest stock-specific events.

The S&P 500 is already up over 4% MTD, and if yesterday’s gains don’t hold it would mark a truly momentous milestone for the S&P 500.  That’s because we have already seen two straight months where the S&P 500 was up over 3% MTD but finished down in a given month.  In the entire history of the S&P 500, there have only been four periods of back to back months where we have seen similar reversals with the most recent occurrence back in January and February of 2009.  In case you were curious, there were only three other months in between these two periods where we saw a similar reversal in a single month (October 2009, January 2010, and November 2010).

Looking at the prior back to back monthly negative reversals, the S&P 500 was higher six months later three out of four times.  The only negative period was in May and June of 1973 when the S&P 500 fell 6.4% over the next six months and 17.5% over the next year.