The S&P 500 Breaks Records

Finance is all about comparisons. The better you compare periods, the clearer your story becomes.

This Week's Chart Drop

Last week, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit record highs, but not all the Magnificent Seven were part of the charge. Companies leveraging AI effectively were rewarded, raising the question: are markets rewarding real execution, or just a compelling story? Could this AI surge echo the early dot-com boom, and its eventual bust?

Design Trick

A dumbbell chart is a simple way to show comparisons. Excel doesn’t have a built-in dumbbell chart template. You can create one using a Scatter Chart combined with Error Bars to mimic the dumbbell effect.

Each week, I share one simple Excel visual—from sport, business, or personal finance—to give finance professionals ideas on how to present their data.

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