For this week's post, I thought it would be good to give a market overview in light of the Federal Reserve Chairman's comments last week on starting to taper bond purchases later this year and continuing to hold interest rates low. This ignited a strong stock market rally on Friday after a volatile last couple of weeks, presumably lifting some of the uncertainty about the Fed's path forward. The question now is which way will the market go. A difficult question to answer, especially since September is typically not a great month for the stock market. On the flip side, the ongoing economic recovery, strong corporate earnings and favorable monetary / fiscal environment are positives. Perhaps the biggest positive is the continued "easy money" environment supported by the Fed. Some market watchers see economic weakness on the horizon based on some of the recent mixed economic data and a slowdown would obviously be bullish for bonds and not so bullish for the stock market. There is however, a big difference between a recession and moderating growth in 2022 and we could be seeing the latter, which would still bode well for the stock market for the remainder of the year and next.