Insights

Ten completed S&P 500 bull markets since 1957 ran a median of about 55 months and gained about 108%. A bull market is conventionally a rise of 20% or more from a low, a rule of thumb rather than an official ruling. This guide computes every S&P 500 bull market from 1957 to October 2026, measured from one bear-market low to the next bear-market peak, and lists each one's length, gain and largest pullback. It then compares the Shiller CAPE valuation at the start and end of each run, sets the starts and ends against NBER recession dates, and explains why a bull's end is visible only after a 20% fall. A closing checklist helps judge any bull-market claim without reading a past run as a forecast.

Rising Treasury yields weigh on stock valuations through the discount rate, yet the two often rise together. The 10-year Treasury yield is the starting point for the return investors demand from stocks, so a higher yield, with nothing else changing, lowers what future profits are worth today. A worked Gordon growth example shows a fair P/E falling from 16.7 to 10 when the yield goes from 2% to 4%, and why a long-duration stream loses twice as much as a short one. The guide separates real from nominal yields using TIPS data, sets out what the "Fed model" compares and why critics reject it, compares 2022 sector fund returns, and uses ten years of daily FRED data to show how often the stock-yield correlation changed sign.

Market cap is price times all outstanding shares, and a wrong share count can move it by hundreds of billions. The number counts insider and restricted shares, leaves out treasury stock and unexercised awards, and is not the same as the float-adjusted value index providers use. Using Alphabet's own 10-Q share counts and Nasdaq closing prices for July 15, 2026, the guide works through a three-class calculation, shows how skipping the unlisted Class B shares understates the total by about $310 billion, and compares the result with diluted counts, enterprise value and book value. A closing checklist covers what to verify before relying on any market cap figure.

Weak data can lift stocks when it raises the odds of lower interest rates or was already expected. Stock prices are a bet on the future, not a report card on the present, so a bad headline can arrive after the damage was already priced in, or can change the expected path of interest rates in a way that outweighs the hit to earnings. The article covers the link between weak data and Federal Reserve easing, the gap between news and expectations, relief rallies and short covering, and the habit of stock prices to turn before the economy does, then the conditions under which bad news simply stays bad. It draws on dated episodes from 2009 and 2020, including days when easing came with falling stocks, and on peer-reviewed research about unemployment news and monetary policy surprises.

Most companies beat estimates, so the market reacts to the gap between results and expectations. Four times a year, US public companies release quarterly results over several weeks, and the mood of the whole market can shift with them. This guide explains why the reaction depends on the bar rather than the number: how consensus estimates and guidance set that bar, what a five-year average S&P 500 beat rate of 78% means, why bad surprises have been punished harder than good ones are rewarded, and how one company's report moves its peers and the index. It dates the latest figures (Q2 2026 final stretch, Q3 2026 just starting), includes a hypothetical worked example, and ends with a checklist for following a season without reading too much into one day.

The NBER has taken 4 to 21 months to date US recessions, and two weak GDP quarters are not its test. This explainer sets out the National Bureau of Economic Research's definition word for word, the depth, diffusion and duration tests behind it, and the six monthly indicators plus GDP and GDI its eight-member committee weighs. A table of the last eight recessions shows peak and trough months, durations, announcement delays and the rise in unemployment, and a second table tracks payroll jobs and real income. It also covers 2001 and 2022, two cases where the GDP shortcut and the official dates disagreed, and how to check the status yourself.

On 2022 CPI release days the S&P 500 moved 1.9% on average, against 1.2% on other trading days. This guide explains what the monthly CPI report actually measures, from the 35.6% shelter weight to the October 2025 data that were never collected, and how it differs from the PCE index the Fed targets. It shows how base effects can cut the yearly rate by a full point in one month, walks through four channels from an inflation print to share prices, and lays out 10 release days from 2022 to 2026 with BLS figures, S&P 500 moves and 2-year Treasury yield changes, including what really happened on March 14, 2023.

A Fed rate decision reaches savings, mortgages, stocks and the dollar at very different speeds and strengths. The Federal Reserve sets one overnight rate range, currently 3.75% to 4.00% after an increase decided on September 16, 2026 and effective the next day, and steers it with the interest it pays on reserves. Everything else is priced by markets, mostly on what they expect the Fed to do next. This guide follows that chain link by link, with research estimates of how bond yields and stocks react to surprises, FDIC data showing how slowly savings rates followed the 2022–2023 hikes, a mortgage-spread formula, and a table of how yields, credit spreads, the S&P 500 and the dollar moved across the last hiking cycle.

The 10-year yield averaged below the 3-month yield for 25 straight months, yet no recession has been dated. This explainer shows how to read the US Treasury yield curve from the official daily data: what the normal, flat, inverted and humped shapes mean, why the Federal Reserve sets the short end while expectations and a term premium drive the long end, and what Estrella and Mishkin, the New York Fed model and Fed staff research found about inversions. It tabulates the 5- to 16-month lead before each recession since 1969, measures the 2022–2024 episode and its brief 2025 echo, and tests the explanations offered for why no recession has followed.

Since 1957 the S&P 500 has closed 10% below a record 23 times, and only some came back within six months. This guide counts those declines from daily closing data, with depth, days to the low and days to regain the old high, and tests the popular claim that most corrections recover within six months: the answer depends on whether the clock starts at the peak, at the 10% line or at a low nobody can see in real time. It explains the shock-and-vulnerability lens the Federal Reserve uses, how a 15% stock drop moves a 60/40 mix, the IRS wash-sale rule for tax-loss sales, margin calls, and the pitch tactics FINRA flags.