Remember folks, Earnings Growth (EG) plus Dividend Yield (DY) +/ P/E contraction/Expansion is where your returns come from... so check this from Brian Wesbury over at First Trust Portfolios.
"Economy-wide corporate profits declined 5.1% in the first quarter of 2023, the fastest drop for any quarter since 2020 during the early days of COVID."
That puts a NEGATIVE in the first part of the equation for the first quarter. Not a good sign. HOWEVER, one could argue, with validity I might add, the markets are FORWARD looking by about 6 months thus the negative Q1 EG was already priced back in October when the market was in full bear mode.
There's a lot to that argument. However, now we have to wonder where EG comes from...going forward? AI seems to be the rage. I don't see that as a HUGE boost to EG. But who knows? I've been wrong many, many times.
Ed McQuarrie talks the REAL History of Stocks and Bond performance.
https://www.morningstar.com/portfolios/how-use-commodities-your-portfolio?utm_source=eloqua&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=FundSpy&utm_content=None_61962&utm_id=32070
How Commodities funds can help diversification with Stocks and Bonds and usually not correlated to either
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/most-stunning-fact-about-vanguards-etf-flows-2
This article shows people are pulling money out of mutual funds and putting it into index funds an example is VOO. Also Vanguard Primecap and Core fund opened the fund due to them both because of money being pulled out. INDEX ETF's way to go tax efficient and low expenses