Weekly Market Commentary, August 5, 2024

Stock markets swelled and dropped like waves at the Olympic surfing competition in Tahiti.  

It is often said that markets hate uncertainty. There was a lot of uncertainty last week, and it showed. “The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index soared 3 [percent] on Wednesday and then retreated almost that much on Thursday, before paring the decline at the close, for its biggest up-to-down rotation since May 2022. The S&P 500 Index sank 1.4 [percent], just one day after rallying 1.6 [percent],” reported Alexandra Semenova, Esha Dey, Carmen Reinicke, and Natalia Kniazhevich of Bloomberg. 

High levels of market volatility reflect high levels of uncertainty. Here are three issues that have been top-of-mind for investors: