S&P 500 gain in first half of 2024 blows historical average 'out of the water'

By Christine Idzelis

As the U.S. stock market approaches the end of June, Bespoke analyzed how the S&P 500 typically performs in the first half of a year.

The S&P 500 index has been on course to post big gains for the first half of 2024, with its advance in the first six months of this year set to crush the historical average, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

"The end of the first half of 2024 is rapidly approaching," with the U.S. stock market in its final week of trading for June, Bespoke said in a note emailed note Wednesday. The S&P 500 index SPX, a gauge of U.S. large-cap stocks, finished Wednesday with a modest rise that increased its year-to-date gain to 14.8%, FactSet data show.

While the index's first-half performance so far in 2024 has been roughly in line with its gains in the first six months of last year and 2021, it blows the historical average gain of 4.72% since 1953 "out of the water," Bespoke found.

A handful of Big Tech stocks have fueled the S&P 500's rally so far this year, with shares of Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) surging around 155% in 2024, according to FactSet data. Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. (META), Google parent Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) have all seen their shares soar more than the S&P 500 index this year through Wednesday.

Read: Growth stocks are trouncing value stocks in 2024, even in struggling small-cap universe

The U.S. stock market closed higher Wednesday, with the S&P 500 up 0.2%, the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP climbing 0.5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA eking out a less than 0.1% gain.

The S&P 500 was up more than 4% in the second quarter, after jumping 10.2% in the first three months of this year, FactSet data show. The S&P 500 has risen 3.8% so far in June.

Looking ahead, "July is a great time of the year for equities," historically, according to Bespoke. "The best month of the year for the S&P 500, both since its inception and over the past 20 years is July," the firm said.

-Christine Idzelis

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06-29-24 0736ET

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