S&P 500 had its best year since 2013 thanks in part to Federal Reserve rate cuts.
 | TUE, DEC 31, 2019 | | | | DOW | | NAME | LAST | CHG | %CHG | | AAPL | 293.65 | +2.13 | +0.73% | | MSFT | 157.70 | +0.11 | +0.07% | | CSCO | 47.96 | +0.37 | +0.78% | |
| | S&P 500 | | NAME | LAST | CHG | %CHG | | GE | 11.16 | +0.08 | +0.72% | | AMD | 45.86 | +0.34 | +0.75% | | BAC | 35.22 | +0.07 | +0.20% | |
| | NASDAQ | | NAME | LAST | CHG | %CHG | | AMD | 45.86 | +0.34 | +0.75% | | AAPL | 293.65 | +2.13 | +0.73% | | MSFT | 157.70 | +0.11 | +0.07% | |
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Here we are at the end of 2019 and the many hazards that investors had feared never fully materialized. We thought a global economic slowdown, trade war salvos, an inverted yield curve and potential bumbling by the Federal Reserve would keep stocks in the tank, but instead we had the best year for the S&P 500 since 2013. The Fed, as it turns out, steered the U.S. economy away from the malaise that has been crimping global economic growth. And its three rate cuts - which were hardly enough for a Fed-bashing president - helped push the major indexes to new highs.  Stocks were little changed on the last trading day of the year. Still, we enter 2020 with 2019's fears pushed to the sidelines. President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he will sign a "phase one" trade deal on Jan. 15 - a move that at least means we may not see further escalation in the trade battle anytime soon. "We climbed a wall of worry," said Ned Davis, founder of Ned Davis Research, "from a growth slowdown and profits flat at best, trade concerns, potential impeachment, and high valuations bothering investors — including myself."
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