The Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut interest rates with U.S. stocks trading near a record high, leaving investors searching for historical clues to the path ahead for markets.
The S&P 500 SPX briefly traded above its record close from July 16 after the Fed delivered a rate cut of 50 basis points before erasing its gain to end 0.3% lower. Stock-index futures pointed to sharp gains that could see the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA take another run at record territory.
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Do rate cuts with the stock market at or near all-time highs provide bulls additional fuel or do they portend trouble ahead? Dow Jones Market Data ran back the tape.
They found that since 1990, the Fed has cut rates seven times while the S&P 500 was at or near (within 1%) of an all-time high (see table below).
In those instances, stocks tended to rise on decision day (not including Wednesday) — up 71.4% of the time with a median gain of 0.51%. Six months later, the performance is mixed, rising 57.1% of the time with a tepid median gain of 0.62%.
Analysts at JPMorgan ran the data back 40 years, finding the Fed has cut rates 12 times with the S&P 500 within 1% of an all-time high. The market was higher a year later all 12 times with an average return of around 15%.
That’s interesting, but does it really tell investors much about the stock market’s direction over the course of the easing cycle? As countless market watchers have pointed out, it really tends to depend on the economic backdrop.
“Historically, only half of the bond rally has occurred by the time the first cut arrives. The direction of the equity market is less clear-cut — wholly
dependent on whether the Fed has staved off a recession or whether this rate relief came too late, as we have witnessed so many times in the past,” said David Rosenberg of Rosenberg Research, in a Wednesday note.
”The danger this time around,” he wrote, ”is the extreme level of complacency and the widespread consensus that the business cycle has been repealed.”
Related: History says Fed interest-rate cut sets up ‘crapshoot’ for stock-market investors
—Ken Jimenez and Steve Goldstein contributed.
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