Nothing Can Take the Stock Market Off Its Record Run

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September’s arrival usually means fresh school supplies and investment ideas, but for now Wall Street is expecting more of the same—and that may not be a bad thing.

The

S&P 500

is up 21% this year and while few on the Street expect that it can continue climbing at such a rapid pace for the last four months of the year, there’s little reason to doubt that stocks will continue marching on despite what happens elsewhere in the world.

Need proof? Over the past week, much of the East Coast was pummeled by the remnants of Hurricane Ida. Many lost their homes and others remain without power and yet stock indexes notched new highs.

Then on Friday, the Labor Department announced that there were 235,000 jobs added to the economy in August—well below the 750,000 forecast by economists. The market, coming off of Thursday’s highs, was mixed with the S&P 500 slightly down at 4535.43, the

Dow Jones Industrial Average

off 0.2% at 35,369.09, and the

Nasdaq Composite

up 0.2% at a record high 15,363.52. For the week, the Dow was lower by 0.2%, while the S&P 500 was up 0.6% and the Nasdaq was up 1.5%.

Rather than be spooked by the prospect of slowing economic growth, Wall Street appeared to take the weaker-than-forecast figures as confirmation of concerns it had about how the Covid-19 Delta variant would affect economic activity. And with indications that the Delta variant has hit, or is at least near, peak levels in some parts of the country, the market is willing to look past August’s jobs figures—especially since it means the Federal Reserve is less likely to taper its bond-buying program in the near term.

This jobs report “shows the ebb and flow of volatile data,” Dave Donabedian, chief investment officer of CIBC Private Wealth Management, told Barron’s, remarking that we saw a similar miss in April only to see hiring rebound in later months.

As for where to put money, there’s little reason to quit what’s been working—even if the path may become rockier. “The S&P 500 will be marginally higher at year-end but overall market volatility will rise,” Donabedian said.

So far investors seem just fine with that, according to Baird market strategist Michael Antonelli, who told Barron’s that clients have been “unusually quiet on the ‘what should I be doing’ front.” Near term, he’ll be paying attention to…