New York — US stocks are poised to close out the decade with the longest bull market in history still intact.
With less than two weeks left in the decade, the large cap S&P 500, with re-invested dividends, has easily outperformed other major asset classes and benchmark commodities, climbing more than 250%. The Bloomberg Barclays US aggregate bond index, a broad-based index that includes US treasuries, corporate bonds and other fixed-income products, rose 47%.
Buoyed in part by an accommodative monetary policy from the US Federal Reserve, which drove bond yields to near historic lows, the S&P 500 has been the best performing benchmark equity index over the decade out of the 10 largest global economies. The gains in the US stock market were fueled by the technology and consumer discretionary sectors, with each climbing more than 300% over the decade. Energy was the weakest group, narrowly avoiding a loss and was up only 4.3% through to the December 19 close.