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U.S. markets jump to yet more record highs as investors ignore politics and pile into stocks.

The Market Sum | Insight after the bell By Caleb Silver, Editor in Chief Thursday's Headlines 1. U.S. markets top new record highs as chip stocks lead gains 2. Central banks of Japan and England hold interest rates steady 3. House passes SECURE Act, changing the rules around retirement benefits 4. Where has most of the money flowed in 2019? 5. Which sectors have driven markets to record highs in 2019? Markets Closed Dow 28,376.96 +0.49% S&P 3,205.37 +0.45% Nasdaq 8,887.22 +0.67% VIX 12.5 -0.64% Bitcoin $7,193.69 +0.53% US 10-Yr Yield 1.908 -0.83%     Markets Today U.S. markets ripped to new highs today as investors ignored the political chaos in Washington D.C. and stuck with the assets that have been performing all year - stocks. The S&P 500 closed over 3200 for the first time, which has been a key threshold for the broader market. The yield on the U.S. 10-year bond inched down slightly, but is still closing back in on 2%, a level it hasn't seen in four months. As for the impeachment of President Trump, the S&P 500 is up nearly 7% since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched a formal impeachment inquiry in September. For comparison, during Clinton's impeachment process, the broad index surged more than 26%. These types of events rarely impact the stock market unless they are the beginning of a fundamental change in monetary or fiscal policy. This impeachment proceeding does not appear to represent that. Headlines Goldman Sachs is reportedly in talks with the U.S. government to pay a multibillion-dollar fine, admit guilt, and agree to continuing oversight of its compliance procedures in order to resolve a criminal investigation into its role in a Malaysian corruption scandal. The WSJ is reporting that the bank and the Justice Department have largely agreed on a fine of just under $2 billion to settle allegations that Goldman ignored red flags while billions of dollars were looted from its client, a Malaysian government fund known as 1MDB Live Nation said that it has reached an agreement "in principle" with the U.S. Dept. of Justice to extend and clarify the consent decree that was formed in 2010 when Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster. The DOJ has been investigating Live Nation for allegedly pressuring concert venues to use Ticketmaster over other ticket sellers. Shares of LVN popped 9% on the news. The Bank of England held its main interest rate steady at 0.75% but warned that it may need monetary policy stimulus if global growth does not stabilize and Brexit uncertainties linger. The central bank cut its GDP forecast for 4Q'19 to 0.1% from 0.2% to reflect the current economic weakness. The Bank of Japan kept policy steady as analysts expected it would. The central bank said the country's economy has been on a "moderate expanding trend" with some weakness in exports, production, and business sentiment due to slowdowns overseas and natural disasters. It says the impact of these slowdowns on domestic demand will be limited. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe launched a $121 billion fiscal stimulus package, the first since 2016. Congress passed a spending bill today that includes the bipartisan Secure Act, which aims to increase the number of retirement savers and the amount they put away every year. Changes include making it easier for small businesses to band together to offer 401(k) plans and offering tax credits to those firms that do; requiring businesses to let long-term, part-time workers become eligible for retirement benefits; and repealing the maximum age for making contributions to traditional individual retirement accounts. President Trump is expected to sign the spending bill the Act was included in, and make it into law. For more on the Secure Act and the changes, read on: What is the SECURE Act? How the SECURE Act affects your retirement         chart courtesy Morningstar    2019... The Year of the Taxable Bond The stock market has been hogging the spotlight all year as new records have been falling like leaves. To be sure, the financial media (present company included) pays way more attention to stocks than other asset classes because they are easy to tell stories about. Companies and executives are a lot more fun to write about than corporate, municipal, or government debt. Still, the global bond market is worth about $103 trillion, or 34% bigger than the $77 trillion world equity market. When we look at money flows in 2019, the taxable bond market, depicted in the chart above as the orange part of the bars, has dominated all year. While individual investors like you and me may have exposure to bonds in our retirement or brokerage accounts, institutional investors own this table of the casino, and they have been betting long all year. As yields have fallen for bonds in 2019, prices have risen, making some bond investors very rich. It's just not that much fun to talk about, but, as American bank robber Willie Sutton once said, "that's where the money is."   Image courtesy of Smithsonian.com         chart courtesy Bespoke Investments   Best Stock Sectors of the Year Back to stocks, we shared a chart yesterday about the biggest stocks, and their influence on the broader market. Today, let's look at which industry sectors have been the strongest all year. It should come as no surprise that the technology sector takes home the trophy, with returns of more than 45% year-to-date. Communication services (think Alphabet/Google, Facebook, and Netflix), comes in second, and financials comes in third. The technology sector has dominated thanks to the outperformance of semiconductor stocks. The three best performing stocks in the S&P 500 in 2019 are AMD, Lamb Research, and KLA - all semiconductor or semiconductor equipment stocks. Chips ahoy!   chart courtesy YCharts     More News: SEC Proposes Expanding Access to Private Capital Markets Eli Lilly Stock Jumps Higher After Analyst Upgrade 3 Charts That Traders Will Want to Watch in 2020 chart courtesy YCHARTS     Packaged food company Conagra Brands shot up 15.8% today after it reported strong beats on both revenue and earnings. Water management and chemical firm Ecolab jumped 3.3% today after it announced it was spinning off its oil and gas services segment, and combining it with oil and gas services company, Apergy.     Darden restaurants, parent company of Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse, among other restaurant chains, fell 6.3% today after it reported same-restaurant sales below expectations. Medical device maker Abiomed fell 4.3% today and truck maker PACCAR fell 3.6%. Word of the Day Taxable Bond A taxable bond is a debt security whose return to the investor is subject to taxes at the local, state or federal level, or some combination thereof. An investor trying to decide whether to invest in a taxable bond or tax-exempt bond should consider what s/he will have left in income after taxes are taken.     Mike Kemp / Getty Images   Today in History December 19, 1984 Today in 1984 the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed, establishing that China would regain control of Hong Kong on July 1, 1997. The U.K. first occupied Hong Kong during the First Opium War in 1840. The treaty stated that China's policies towards Hong Kong, as well as Hong Kong's legal and judicial systems "will remain unchanged for 50 years," after 1997. The current protests in Hong Kong were sparked by the criminal suspect transfer bill, which the protesters believed would threaten Hong Kong's freedoms that China had promised to respect. Source:  https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3017318/explainer-what-sino-british-joint-declaration-and-what-does How can we improve the Market Sum? Tell us at marketsum@investopedia.com Enjoy the Market Sum? Share it with a friend.   Click to Share   Or share the link below to invite friends to sign up. https://link.investopedia.com/join/53o/00-fwd-marketsum CONNECT WITH INVESTOPEDIA Email sent to:  mondemand.forex@blogger.com To update your newsletter preferences or unsubscribe, click here.   114 West 41st St, floor 8 New York NY 10036 © 2019, Investopedia, LLC. All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy