Market Trends & Outlook

You certainly did not need 20/20 vision to see that 2020 was not an ordinary year. From a global pandemic, civil unrest to an election like no other, news headlines took many twists and turns throughout the year. Despite the vast amount of negative news, financial markets ultimately shrugged off the bad news.

You certainly did not need 20/20 vision to see that 2020 was not an ordinary year. From a global pandemic, civil unrest to an election like no other, news headlines took many twists and turns throughout the year. Despite the vast amount of negative news, financial markets ultimately shrugged off the bad news.

While 2020 brought difficult times for cruise operators, airlines and restaurants, U.S. ETF sponsors shook off an early hiccup and cruised to one of the most successful years in the history of the industry. Starting the year with $4.4 trillion in assets under management (AUM), ETFs rode a wave of in-flows and a powerful stock market rally to finish the year with more than $5.4 trillion of AUM, a 23.4% increase from the end of 2019.

While 2020 brought difficult times for cruise operators, airlines and restaurants, U.S. ETF sponsors shook off an early hiccup and cruised to one of the most successful years in the history of the industry. Starting the year with $4.4 trillion in assets under management (AUM), ETFs rode a wave of in-flows and a powerful stock market rally to finish the year with more than $5.4 trillion of AUM, a 23.4% increase from the end of 2019.

It wasn’t just the Fed or the stimulus. The rise in savings among white-collar workers created a tide lifting nearly all financial assets. At MAP, we spend much of our time reading. We want to point you to our favorite articles. Here is our weekly curation of our favorite reads.

At some distant point in the future, as memories of a tumultuous 2020 fade, stock market returns for the year will live on as data points in a long string of annual return data stretching back hundreds of years.

There are still 6 weeks or so left in the year but as of this moment the massive swing from huge losses to a gain will likely go down as the biggest stock market reversal in history. At MAP, we spend much of our time reading. We want to point you to our favorite articles. Here is our weekly curation of our favorite reads.

As we enter November, investors have used newfound clarity surrounding the U.S political landscape after a contentious presidential election, with an apparent winner in Joe Biden, as a reason to forget a mostly miserable October.