September 5th 2023 Weekly Economic Update

The Week On Wall Street The S&P 500 lost 1.6% in August, breaking a five-month winning streak to bring its year-to-date total return to 18.7%. The Dow Jones Industrials and the Nasdaq each fared slightly worse with declines of about 2% last month, while the Nasdaq is lapping the field this year with its 34.9% year-to-date return powered by mega cap technology stocks. The Russell 2000 small cap benchmark lagged the major large cap benchmarks with a 5% loss in August. The weakness was broad based, as small caps underperformed large caps in nine of 11 sectors, but the majority of the underperformance was concentrated in financials, healthcare, and technology. Year-to-date, the large cap dominated Russell 1000 Index’s 18.6% return has more than doubled the 9% advance for the small cap Russell 2000.