As we roll through the second week of December, the markets seem to be going a little crazy as the year comes to an end. From January 1st until November 28th of this year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had gained 7.02% while the S&P 500 was up 10.6%. But, over the first week and a half of December, the Dow has lost 1.68% while the broader S&P 500 has fallen 2.04%.
Furthermore, the bulk of those declines came earlier this week when the markets closed lower Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And not only did the major indexes end the sessions off the mark, but their intraday lows put the indexes down by more than 1.25% on two of the three trading sessions.
The downward pressure being felt earlier this week could easily be blamed on a number of things which I am sure they were by many of the pundits out there; oil prices falling, oil prices rising, issues in Europe and Draghi not doing enough, slowing growth in Asia, weak growth numbers here at home, a poor start to the holiday shopping season, the list could go on and on. But, I personally don't believe any of those reasons are why the market has recently been falling.
