As we take pen to paper for this Weekly Wire we have one trading day left in November, and what a November it has been for our country, our economy, and our stock market:

• We saw our way through the most contested and divisive Presidential election in generations.
• We received incredibly positive news on the COVID-19 vaccine front from Pfizer and several other pharmaceutical companies.
• The final November reading of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow “nowcast” has the economy growing 11% in Q4 2020.
• US home prices hit an all-time high.
• Q3 2020 earnings season came in much better than expected, with 85% of the companies reporting to date topping Wall Street’s earnings expectations.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 30,000 for the first time.
• The “Big 4” stock market indices – the S&P 500 Index, the NASDAQ Composite, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Russell 2000 – hit all-time highs this month.
• While the Big 4 indices are up double digits in November, it is the Russell 2000 that has shone, up approximately 20%, and on track for its best monthly return ever. Considering small cap stocks tend to be more volatile, cyclical, and dependent on capital markets than large cap stocks, we think the strong relative and absolute performance of the Russell 2000 is indicative of better economic times to come in 2021.