The major indices like the Dow Jones and S&P 500 have been on a winning streak!

Stocks continue to uptrend

On Monday the 28th of March, the Dow rose 342 points and the Nasdaq gained 1.68% extending the uptrend that started about two weeks ago.

Even with the war going on in Ukraine, the stock market has recovered much of its losses from the beginning of the year.

Has the fear left the markets?

The volatility index, VIX, is the indicator people consider to be the fear and greed gauge.

It dropped below 20 for the first time today since the beginning of 2022.

This is signaling that people are less fearful due to the nice increase in stock prices over the past couple of weeks.

This has many investors wondering what is going to happen next.

When the volatility index gets low, this means that options around the board are generally cheap as well.

This means it can be a good time to hedge your portfolio with an options strategy like a put debit spread.

You can learn more about trading options in my post called, Technical Analysis and Options Trading.

Technical Analysis and Options Trading

Learning how to combine option trading and technical analysis is a great way to maximize your profits on the stock…

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The yield curve

Some people are taking a look at the 10-year — 2-year yield curve and noticing it is nearing an inversion.

Yield curve inversions are normally followed by a recession, but how long after is the real question.

It can take up to over a year after the yield inverts for the recession to occur, so this is not always a guarantee of anything happening in the short term.

The Federal reserve

The market is also wildly dependent on the Federal Reserve as they are consistently discussing how much they are going to increase rates.

The rates will determine how hot the economy gets and the increases are already being seen in mortgage loans as explained in my article called, Why Mortgage Rates are Soaring.

Bottom line

Regardless of what happens going forward, the main indices like the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 have proven to increase over time at a steady rate.

There will be good times and bad times in the stock market, but over 10 year spans the markets have provided positive returns as long as you just hold strong.