March Madness began early this year. It has been a rough month for US equity markets which coming into this week have closed lower for four consecutive weeks. There has been a significant increase in volatility and unrelenting weakness which has led to one of the fastest 10% drawdowns within the S&P 500 in history. The long-awaited oversold bounce finally came last Friday with the S&P 500 rallying 2% cutting the WTD losses in half. In an ode to St. Patrick, there was some follow through on Monday marking the first back-to-back gains since February 19th. However, the rest of the week has been similar to a back-and-forth battle between 8 and 9 seeds, alternating between gains and losses with the outcome of the week hanging in the balance right up until the close. By a slim margin the bulls came out ahead helped by a mid-day assist from President Trump and some big, and by big, I mean record, flows into the close. For the week the S&P 400, 500 and 600 ended up ~0.5%.

Expand article