A wild week on Wall Street has people wondering

After months of eerie calm, stock market volatility has returned. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) — a measure of how turbulent investors expect stock markets to be during the next 30 days — appeared to fall asleep in November 2016. For more than a year, a level of serenity that is rarely associated with stock markets prevailed and U.S. share prices moved steadily higher.

It appears that time is behind us.

Barron’s wrote: “With February’s swift stock market correction, volatility has arrived and will probably stay awhile. The downturn last week ended a streak of 404 trading days without a 5 percent drop in stock prices from the previous high — the longest such streak in market history.

The last correction came in February 2016, when stocks dropped 15 percent. Investors then fretted that Chinese economic growth might be slowing, which turned out to be a false alarm. Long term, the latest nose dive might yet become just a bull speed bump, but there’s already been plenty of pain.”

No matter what happens, the key is keeping your head. At times like these, emotion grabs investors by the throat, and it can be difficult to recall markets and economies tend to move in cycles. Historically, bull markets lead to bear markets, which lead to bull markets. Likewise, economic expansions are followed by contractions (recessions), which are followed by expansions.

MARKET DOWNTURNS ARE NOT A DESTINATION.

Markets and economies are cyclical. For instance, from 1945 through 2009 (the start of the current expansion), the United States experienced 11 economic cycles. The average recession lasted for about 11 months and the average expansion persisted for about 58 months, reported the National Bureau for Economic Research.

Since bear markets usually mark the beginning of recessions, let’s take a look at what some leading financial companies and publications have to say about their expectations for 2018:

“The U.S. expansion is on course to become the longest on record, stirring concerns it is about to run out of steam. But is it? The recently enacted tax overhaul and higher federal spending could add 0.8 percentage point to U.S. GDP [gross domestic product] growth in 2018, we estimate. This could tip the balance toward accelerating growth. Such a boost could shorten the cycle’s expiration date to two or three years.” (BlackRock Investment Institute, Feb. 7)

“Perhaps the over-arching risk is complacency. While the current conjuncture might appear to be a sweet spot for the global economy, prudent policy makers must look beyond the near term ... The next recession may be closer than we think, and the ammunition with which to combat it is much more limited than a decade ago, notably because public debts are so much higher.” (IMF Blog, Jan. 22)

This article was written by Peterson Wealth Management. For more information, please call 775-673-1100 or visit PetersonWM.com.