The S&P 500's winning streak has now stretched to 6 consecutive weeks.  The stock index is down just 2.9% YTD (total return) after stumbling out of the gate and posting a 24.6% YTD loss in early March.  52 companies in the S&P 500 reported their 1st quarter financial results last week and another 130 firms will do so this upcoming week (source: BTN Research).  
 
Inflation (as measured by the Consumer Price Index) declined fractionally in March (down 0.1% from February), but of greater significance was the year-over-year nationwide price decline of 0.4% as of 3/31/09.  A 1-year drop in consumer prices last occurred more than 53 years ago (August 1955), causing the topic of deflation to resurface last week in the minds of some market watchers (source: Department of Labor).   
 
The House Financial Services Committee (chaired by Barney Frank, Dem., MA) will hold a hearing this Thursday on legislation designed to prevent predatory lending practices.  The bill (H.R. 1728) is similar to a proposal that passed in the House 2 years ago but eventually stalled in the Senate.  Foreclosure filings (i.e., default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions) occurred on 803,000 properties during the 1st quarter 2009, representing action on 1.1% of all homes in the nation (source: House of Representatives, RealtyTrac).

1.     DEBT-FREE - More than twice as many households own their home "free-and-clear" of debt (25 million) compared to the number of households (10 million) where the outstanding mortgage debt exceeds the market value of the home (source: American Housing Study, Money Magazine). 
 
2      POST-BEAR RETURN - The average gain for the S&P 500 in the 1-year following the low close for the 8 bear markets that occurred in the last 50 years is +36.5%.  The current bear market is the 9th bear market of the last half-century.  The closing low point (so far) of this 9th bear market was 677 and it took place 6 weeks ago today on 3/09/09.  In the last 6 weeks, the S&P 500 has gained +28.5%, not counting the impact of reinvested dividends.  The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index of 500 widely held stocks that is generally considered representative of the US stock market (source: BTN Research). 
 
3      THE OLDEST INDEX - The Dow Jones Industrial Average will turn 113-years old next month.  Only 12 stocks were used in the index's original calculation in May 1896 and only 1 stock in that group remains in the index today.  The index was expanded to 30 stocks in October 1928, just 1-year before the 1929 stock market crash.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a popular indicator of the stock market based on the average closing prices of 30 active U.S. stocks representative of the overall economy (source: Dow Jones). 
 
4      VALUE vs. GROWTH - Growth stocks lost 5.0% per year for the 10 years ending 3/31/09.  Value stocks lost 0.2% per year for the 10 years ending 3/31/09.  The growth and value components of the Russell 3000 were used in this calculation.  The Russell 3000 is an unmanaged stock index (made up of the largest 3,000 US stocks) representing 98% of the domestic stock capitalization (source: Russell).

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