By

Aug. 17, 2019

The stock market is having a banner year.

The stock market has barely budged in the past year.

Both of those statements are true: The S&P 500 is up about 15 percent in 2019, a great performance by historical standards, but it is essentially flat since last August. And that is just one of the many paradoxes bedeviling investors this strange summer.

The economy is humming, with historically low unemployment levels, yet the economy is flashing warning signs, some of which have turned out to be false alarms in the recent past. The Federal Reserve went from raising interest rates to lowering them to now, under pressure from President Trump, appearing poised to cut them again. From day to day and from tweet to tweet, the country’s trade war with China runs hot and cold and hot again.

The S&P 500 dropped 1.2 percent on Monday, jumped almost 2 percent on Tuesday, tumbled 3 percent on Wednesday, didn’t move at all on Thursday and then closed out Friday with a 1.44 percent rally.

Given all the mixed messages emanating from the economy and central bankers and politicians, the turbulence this past week is likely to continue. The question is where it will come from. And when it will hit. And how violent it will be.