Stocks rose sharply Friday and for the week. Stock values have come down since Russia invaded Ukraine, and the price of the Standard & Poor’s 500 is now in line with its long-term compound annual growth rate of 7%. This indicates stocks are not overpriced like they were in the tech-stock bubble, which began in 1997 and peaked in 1999 and 2000, when the S&P 500 was out of line with the average annual 7% long-term growth trend.

Currently, the economy and stock market seems troubled and scary. A bear market began on June 13 and prices are sharply lower than at the beginning of 2022. How bad do things look to the experts?

According to the latest Wall Street Journal quarterly survey of 60 leading economists, the consensus forecast is for a recession in the first and second quarter of 2023, but the downturn will be short and shallow, and the consensus forecast is for positive-growth of six-tenths of 1% in the third quarter for the U.S. economy.

The S&P 500 stock index closed Friday at 3,752.75, gaining +2.4% from Thursday and +4.7% from a week earlier. The index is up +67.73% from the March 23, 2020, bear market low and down -21.76% from the January 3rd all-time high.

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