“The stock market has been the big loser, but you don’t have to be a Wall Street veteran to see that.
This year the market is in a downward spiral,” said Stephen Mascarenhas, the chief investment officer of Fidelity Investments.
“It is down about 6 percent.
That is an extraordinary run.
The market is very volatile.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained about 2 percent in 2017.
The S&P 500 is up about 3 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 4.7 percent.
This is a year when the economy is on a steady march forward, the Fed is slowly winding down its stimulus and the unemployment rate is hovering around 6.5 percent.
“The economy is in its infancy, so this is not a normal year for it,” Mascares said.
“There are very few good things happening.”
The economy is still recovering from the Great Recession, and economists believe the recovery will continue into 2018.
The economy has added more than 150,000 jobs since the start of the year, and the economy continues to expand.
But Mascareas prediction comes on the heels of a Reuters poll showing that only 35 percent of Americans believe the U.S. economy is headed in the right direction.
This marks the first time the Reuters/Ipsos poll has found that more than half of respondents are dissatisfied with the way things are going.
“I think there are a lot of people that feel that way,” Maffa said.
The biggest worry for Mascarantes and others is that the Dow Jones industrial average has slipped from the highs reached in 2014 and 2015.
That means investors may not be buying stocks.
Mascaringes said that this is likely to change in coming weeks as the Dow dips.
The Dow is up nearly 12 percent this year, the S&P 500 has jumped nearly 8 percent and the Nasdaq has jumped more than 7 percent.
Many companies are hoping to use their momentum from the recent gains to get back on their feet.
“You’re not going to see a lot more momentum from here,” Mabac said.
It is possible that stocks will begin to regain some momentum once the Federal Reserve begins to ease its stimulus program.
“This is an interesting year for investors because we have seen this year a lot less volatility than we saw last year,” said Michael Fuchs, chief investment strategist at S&s, adding that the Fed will likely begin to ease the stimulus program this summer.
“But it is a long way off,” he said.
Fuchs believes that investors will be buying in 2018 with the expectation that the economy will continue to improve and that there will be more momentum moving forward.
“That could make it a good year for a rebound in the stock market.”