Stocks came under solid pressure this past week to close out a negative August across equities. Sentiment was exacerbated by concerns about a potential US-led military response on Syria for President Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons on the Syrian people and crude oil and gold prices continuing to rise.
In the near term, we are likely to see gyrations in the market due to political bickering in Washington, debate over tapering, speculation about the next Fed Chief and the upcoming debt ceiling deadline. Additionally, we will be keeping an eye on the August jobs report numbers coming out on Friday after July saw the slowest hiring month since March.
We continue to view any near term weakness as a buying opportunity and believe the current moderate growth and low inflation environment will drive stock prices higher. Barron’s wrote this week that the consensus view of the 10 Wall Street Strategists they interviewed is that the S&P will reach 1700 by year end and 2000 in 18-24 months.
_