There’s still plenty to fret about. But considering solely the performance record of financial markets at midyear, I could have relaxed months ago about my investment returns, and so could nearly everybody else.

The remarkable thing is that despite continual shocks, pervasive uncertainty and periodically sharp price declines, often induced by the disruptive policies of the Trump administration, the U.S. stock and bond markets have turned in perfectly respectable performances so far this year.

It hasn’t been a case of America finishing first, though. Markets elsewhere in the world were outstanding, and the falling U.S. dollar amplified their exceptional performances for U.S. investors with global holdings.

Still, the S&P 500 stock index, which tracks many of the biggest stocks in the U.S. market, returned 10.9 percent, including dividends, for the three months through June and 15.2 percent for 12 months. Those are excellent returns by any measure — higher, for example, than the 10.5 percent annualized return of the S&P 500 since 1926, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst for S&P Dow Jones Indices.

For 2025 through June, the index was up only 6.2 percent, with dividends. That’s a solid return — and it’s absolutely outstanding when you consider how frightening the stock market looked just a few months ago. Recall that from Feb. 19 through April 8, the S&P 500 fell 18.9 percent, a sharp drop caused, in large measure, by President Trump’s imposition of the steepest tariffs in 100 years. Tariffs haven’t gone away, but some are being negotiated down, with sufficient movement to calm the markets.

As much of a relief as the market rebound has been, let’s keep some perspective: The S&P 500’s 6.2 percent total return for the first six months of the year in Mr. Trump’s second term ranks as merely OK. It trailed the 15.3 percent total return of the first six months of 2021, when President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was in power, and the 9.3 percent return in 2017, during the first Trump administration.