So, 2021 was supposed to be more normal?
The stock market has been anything but. Markets in January hit records, and then quickly turned to mayhem. The frenzied day-trading in GameStop and other once-dormant stocks fueled but then brought the overall market down. In February, so far, stock indexes have risen to records or near-records again.
The total return of the average diversified U.S.-stock fund for January was a minuscule 0.3% after all the dust settled, according to Refinitiv Lipper data. As a category, the funds rose 19.1% for all of 2020, despite the economic pressures of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns.
International-stock funds, which on average rose 12.6% in 2020, fell 0.83% in January.
“The year is off to a funny start,” says Sylvia Jablonski, chief investment officer with Defiance ETFs in New York. “We have a new president, we’re sort of past the Georgia elections, and [it’s] onward and upward as far as Covid vaccines,” she says. “There is more cash into the market and things like that.”
