<p>I'm finally back! Thank you for your patience as I took a long European vacation and an extra week to get back into the swing of things, but we have a big week to recap last week. We will be discussing the gains, election results & outcome & rate cuts!</p><p class="button-wrapper"><a class="button primary" href="https://beansandbucks.substack.com/subscribe"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p><strong>Best Week Since November 2023</strong></p><p>Last week we had the best week in the stock market since November of 2023, gaining 4.65% on the S&P500 in a single week. This was largely on the backs of the election results and rate cuts, both of which will be discussed later in this article. The S&P500 is up 25.8% in 2024 with 2 months left compared. We will keep tabs on price action as we move forward into the holidays! Because of Black Friday and Christmas shopping, this is usually a positive time for company's profits. We also have year-end balancing and bonus checks being invested. All will be reviewed here as we get closer! If we push 30% for the year it will be the first time since 1997.</p><p><strong>Election Gains</strong></p><p>On Tuesday, November 5th and into the early mornings of November 6th, the United States elected republican candidate, Donald Trump as the 47th President. Historically, the market performs better with republicans in office, due to their corporate favoritism and in this instance, with Donald Trump, large corporate tax cuts. On November 6th, the market saw its largest single day gain of 2.53% since 11/30/2022 (3.09%).</p><p><strong>Fed Rate Decision</strong></p><p>On top of the election, there was also a new Fed rate decision on Thursday, November 7th. They have decided to cut rates by 25bps, as widely expected. This brings the fed funds target rate down to 4.50% - 4.75%. Because of the cuts, smaller companies will further have an easier time borrowing money for research and development of their upcoming products. This pushes the Russel 2000 index higher as it jumped 0.73% on Friday and another 1.5% just yesterday. Looking ahead, we will be watching to ensure the labor market stays robust and inflation does not reignite.</p><p><strong>Technical Analysis</strong></p><p>We obviously broke out of a long range of consolidation from the past few months with the large gains last week and finally tapped the elusive $6k!</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3238d1f-ecd5-49d6-ba43-1c71d03be9f8_760x634.png" target="_blank"><div class="image2-inset"><source type="image/webp" /><img alt="" class="sizing-normal" height="634" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3238d1f-ecd5-49d6-ba43-1c71d03be9f8_760x634.png" width="760" /><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><svg class="lucide lucide-refresh-cw" fill="none" height="20" stroke="currentColor" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></svg></div><div class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><svg class="lucide lucide-maximize2" fill="none" height="20" stroke="currentColor" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>This is a major round number, so some profit taking is to be expected as we pull back and retest some of these gap-up levels. I expect these gains to stay as this was not a celebratory one-time pump from election results. Rather, it is an understanding of policies to be implemented for the next 4 years that include corporate tax cuts that will provide larger profit margins as we move forward.</p><p>Coming up this week I will jump back into my weekly articles with 529 accounts! Stay tuned this Thursday to learn more about what they are and how they can help provide for the youngest members of your family.</p><p class="button-wrapper"><a class="button primary" href="https://beansandbucks.substack.com/subscribe"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>As always, thank you for liking, subscribing and keeping up with my substack! I appreciate every last one of you.</p><p>Prosperously,</p><p>Jim</p>