EDITOR'S NOTE
And that’s a wrap. The first quarter is officially in the bag, and for the S&P 500, it was the best Q1 in two decades. It’s a sharply different picture than the close of last quarter, which dragged stock markets down for their worst year in a decade.
The big winner to kick off 2019 was technology — a familiar investor favorite that has led this historic bull market. Health care was at the bottom of the rally with a 6 percent gain. Stocks in Ireland led the pack globally with a surge that was more than double the S&P’s performance. The best-performing commodity? Lean hogs. Coffee and wheat were the worst. Fred Imbert has the global breakdown. 
This quarter’s recovery came down to a few things: a rebound off of Christmas-week lows, a reversal in the Fed’s monetary policy stance and hope for a U.S.-China trade deal.
Markets are still shrugging off a lingering trade war, weaker global economic data and an inverted yield curve — a warning sign flashing from the bond markets that usually means a recession is around the corner. Traders are keeping an eye on economic data in the upcoming quarter to see if this U.S. backdrop is strong enough to justify another double-digit quarterly rally. TOP NEWS
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