The S&P 500 notched a new record high this week but mid-week setbacks led to the index's first weekly loss in almost a month. The index ultimately posted a loss of 0.3% for the week. Here is a snapshot of the index from the past week: S&P 500: A Perspective on Volatility For a sense of the correlation between the closing price and intraday volatility, the chart below overlays the S&P 500 since 2007 with the intraday price range. On April 9th, the index experienced its largest intraday price volatility (10. ...

The late, great rocker Tom Petty said it best: “you take it on faith, you take it to the heart, the waiting is the hardest part.” What are many investors waiting for these days? An opportunity to buy not just a dip, but a BIG dip. A dip that is more than just another knee-jerk reaction. More News from Barchart It hasn’t happened yet, and it might not happen anytime soon. But like the laws of gravity, the market is ultimately cyclical. And that means that all good bubbles must pop. Investors are looking ...

Group 1: Market Index Overview - The S&P 500 is the primary measure of broad stock performance, but there are other indexes and variations that can be confusing for investors [1] - The Dow Jones Industrial Average is flawed as it weights constituents by stock price, leading to a skewed representation of market performance [2] - The S&P 500 uses a market cap-weighting methodology, making it more representative of the U.S. economy compared to the Dow [3] Group 2: Equal Weighting vs. Market Cap Weighting - The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF allows each company to impact performance equally, which has historically outperformed the regular S&P 500 index [4][5] - The Nasdaq-100 index consists of the 100 largest companies in the Nasdaq Composite and is also market cap-weighted, but its construction differs significantly from the S&P 500 [6] - The Direxion NASDAQ-100 Equal Weighted Index Shares has underperformed compared to the market cap-weighted Nasdaq-100 index [7] Group 3: Performance Analysis - Both equal-weighted and market cap-weighted indexes have experienced similar price drawdowns, indicating comparable risk [8] - Investors in the Direxion Nasdaq-100 Equal Weighted Index Shares face less reward with the same level of risk, which is not an advantageous trade-off [9] - Equal weighting benefits the S&P 500 by allowing smaller companies to have equal impact, but this logic does not apply well to the Nasdaq-100, which focuses on the largest companies [10] Group 4: Investment Recommendations - For those looking to invest in the Nasdaq-100, it is advisable to choose a straightforward ETF like the Invesco Nasdaq 100 ETF, rather than attempting to apply equal weighting [11]