Happy New Year, Market Reflections, and a Decade of The Tank Tiger
Happy New Year to all! We hope that you spent New Year’s Eve doing something eventful. Perhaps spending the evening with friends and watching football at home was your bag. Just think, we could end up with the 2nd place and 3rd place Big 10 teams playing for the National Championship. Yippee…that makes so much sense…good thing we have a regular season. If you hate football, maybe standing in the freezing cold rain in Times Square, waiting for the ball to drop, amongst a crowd of a million people packed like sardines while wearing a diaper was your jam? It’s only 500 more years until the year 2525 (it’s a song by Zager and Evans). So much fun. Regardless, January has really kicked in for the heating oil fans. The US is facing its coldest January since 2011 as we welcome some Arctic air south of the Canadian border with some significant snowfall to make it even cozier. Rest easy Houstonians, June swelter is just around the corner.
Thurston Howell might have exclaimed that 2024 was a quite a year for the markets. With Artificial Intelligence hysteria and the Fed (finally) cutting interest rates; the S&P 500 gained 23%, the Nasdaq rose 30%, and the Dow gained nearly 13%. It was the best 2 year performance for the S&P in over 25 years. Further out on the investment spectrum, crypto has overstayed its welcome with Bitcoin up more than 110% for the year. We still have no idea what Bitcoin is, but as for stuff you can store in your bedroom closet, gold and silver had gains of 24.5% and 21.5%, respectively. Mr. Howell knows that unemployment remains relatively low, and inflation continues to hover above the targeted goal. As a result, fewer rate cuts are expected in 2025 -especially since the stock market has done so well. Of course, the invisible hand of the market could get red knuckles from the unintended consequences of government intervention. The Cboe Volatility Index, (VIX), – the fear gauge – keeps climbing, and is now approaching 20, as some global trade policies look more vulnerable. Watch this space!
Cruising into 2025 divulges a proud milestone for The Tank Tiger team. Thankfully, 2024 was a good year for us. In April of this year we will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary. Our deepest gratitude goes out to our loyal customer base, who have stuck with us over this prolonged period. We’re enlightened enough to know that more than 70% of unfunded startups fail between their second and fifth years. So no, we’re not relaxing in a hammock on Gilligan’s Island with a tropical concoction in hand, but we humbly admit that it’s still good to be here. Yes..we have tanks to show. Come and get them.
