Because they have only been dropping for the past month.
Left over momentum from the election. Stocks rose pretty continuously from the election on because businesses expected a “pro-corporate” President. They started correcting a week after Jan. 20th inauguration and his tarriff tantrums began to bear fruit, corpos realized they fucked up. “YTD” being zero or only slightly positive/negative only means the markets have fallen back to where they started pre-Trump.
There is a long, loooooong way to fall still.
Are you someone who observes toilets, observes from a toilet, or a toilet that observes?
Maybe I’m missing something, but that link seems to indicate it’s down, -2.26% YTD.
My short answer to why it’s not down more is simply not enough time has passed for it to impact earnings reports. If all the tariff threats are implemented and stick around, it could be a red summer. And don’t forget that most Canadians are boycotting anything made in the US. We just don’t know how much of an impact that will have yet.
Year to date, stocks are down. 1 calendar year though, most are still up.
I’d say it’s a few things:
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Stock market loves de-regulation. (Fewer rules -> more profit.
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Stock market loves the promise of corporate tax cuts.
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Even with tarrifs and nonsense, most American stock indices are heavily skewed to the magnificent 7, all of which besides Tesla are fairly immune to global trade.
Not only immune to global trade : big s/p 500 companies might benefit from the chaos to consolidate at the expense of smaller companies that can’t adjust production across boarder or be effective at lobbying exemptions.
Then come inflation expectations with another layer of pushing stock, especially big cap indexes higher.
You’re holding the chart upside down
VTI is down over 5% YTD at time of writing
