Via Nova’s perspective on the rough week for stocks.  We will offer our thoughts and expectations for the markets in 2019 in our final 2018 message.

The broad equity sell-off was blamed on numerous factors, but few facts.  S&P 500 valuation dropped below the five-year average.

The markets cheered the scheduled resumption of U.S. / China trade talks, lifting the S&P 500 0.66%. Within domestic stocks, there may be early signs that market leadership is shifting away from the long dominant technology sector, at least over the near term. The week’s performance shift was a clear win for the value style, which has been lagging the growth style by over 18% during the past three years.