Is America’s raging bull market exhausted, or taking a breath?

If you had an overindulgent Christmas, you may have begun the new year in a more austere frame of mind. Recent goings-on in the markets may therefore seem familiar. As 2023 drew to a close the American stockmarket was on a ripping run. It ended the year with nine consecutive weeks of gains, the longest winning streak since 2004. The s&p 500 index of leading American stocks was a whisker away from its all-time high, set on January 3rd 2022, when investors thought that interest-rate rises would be small and slow. Now punters are suddenly in a more sober mood, with stocks falling by 1.4% in the first two trading days of the new year. Such modest fluctuations are hardly unusual. Nonetheless, they raise the question of whether the blistering bull market is over, or has further to go.