Stocks Down, Bonds Down, Oil & Gold Up: The 1st Quarter’s Price Charts

Stocks Down, Bonds Down, Oil & Gold Up: The 1st Quarter’s Price Charts

close up shot of a digital stock market tracking graph follwing a recent crash in prices. Bear ... [+] market 3D illustration It's mostly about inflation, the kind that was thought to be transitory last year but then turned out to be less than transitory. It's the inflation of oil prices that really kicked in during the 1st quarter and that stems from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the economic sanctions that followed and the general uneasiness of the geopolitical reality, to put it mildly. Money flowed into assets thought to be more trustworthy than other assets and thus we have a lower equity market, a lower bond market, a raging higher petroleum market and a reawakened precious metals market. Here's the daily chart of the S&P 500: It's a great chart if you're a volatility trader, maybe. If you're an investor, these kinds of moves can be unsettling. From a January peak of up above 4800 to a late February low of 4125 and then a blast back upward — but not all the way back upward, not by a long shot. A close of about 4530 by the end of the quarter is not exactly reassuring. The index