Amidst the continuous stream of news and recent market fluctuations, a dash of certainty was injected into stocks and bonds with this week’s Federal Reserve meeting. If only for a day.
Several factors are at work –
among other factors.
It is high time to talk about cryptocurrency, otherwise known as “crypto,” but where to start? Cryptocurrency is the broad term for digital currency or digital money. Blockchain is a technology that, among other functions, enables the existence of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is the best-known form of digital currency, although there are now more than 8,000 different cryptocurrencies many of which have no following or do not trade.
If all of this sounds too complicated for a Friday morning, read on anyway. We are all in this together. The diagram below first appeared in a May 2019 edition of TGIF 2 Minutes to illustrate how payment methods have evolved from Cash (far-left) to newer and often more convenient forms such as credit cards (“CC” in the diagram), then PayPal and Venmo (the “P” and “V”) and now digital forms such as Bitcoin (the “B”, far-right on the diagram). The world has rapidly gone digital in hundreds of ways including social and money.
Wow… year-end 2021 is fast approaching. As if 2020 was the year we all wanted to turn the page… it is deja vu all over again in 2021. BUT a positive spin can still be put on year-to-date 2021, especially with respect to market returns.
It may be too early to say that stock market gains, to date, have been better than decent in 2021. From the US small-cap index up 12%, to large-cap S&P 500 up 22%, to Nasdaq up 19%, to the Dow Jones up 13%, these are all solid year-to-date returns.
