Summary
Equity investors have been bounced around in 2026, as January kicked off the year with a solid gain, but February gave it right back. Which way will March go? One trend appears certain: the month will get off to a volatile start. Indeed, in the wake of the weekend attack on Iran by the U.S. and Israel, stock futures are lower, bond and gold prices are higher, and the cost of a barrel of oil is on the rise. This type of volatility is really par for the course for March in recent years. The last month of the first quarter had historically been a strong month for the markets — prior to 2020. But the average gain for the S&P 500 in the month of March since 1980 is now 0.9%, after absorbing the COVID-19 plunge of 12.5% in 2020 and another 5.1% tariff-related setback last year. March is thus below the middle of the pack (in eighth place) in terms of average monthly gains, with a winning percentage of 63%. Generally, March is a quiet month on Wall Street, as the fourth-quarter earnings reports are mostly finished. Without a steady flow of profits to review, investors under normal circumstances would be paying very close attention to economic reports (including the non-farm payrolls report this Friday and the Consumer Price Inflation report on March 11), as well as to the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting on
