Investment guru Ed Yardeni says if you block out all the political and global economic gloom, and just looked at the performance of the S&P 500, it has been a great year for stocks.

“Despite all the hand-wringing and unsettling political headlines, this has been a relatively spectacular year for the S&P 500,” the president and chief investment strategist at Yardeni Research said in a note to clients, pointing to the index’s year-to-date gain of just under 20%.

And it’s not just the S&P 500. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained 15%, and the Nasdaq Composite is up 23%. The S&P 500 is on pace for its best year since 2013, Barron’s explained.

Part of that solid performance, Yardeni conceded, is due to the dramatic slide in markets during the end of last year’s fourth quarter. But still, if you go back and look at two-year gains, the index is up more than 12%, and going back even further, it is up almost 34% over the last three years, he notes.

To be sure, rhe S&P 500 index .SPX came within striking distance of its all-time high on Friday after the United States said it was "close to finalizing" some parts of a trade agreement with China, Reuters explained.

Dismal domestic economic indicators since the beginning of October have raised the odds for a third rate cut to 94% from 49% last month. The two-day Fed policy meeting starts on Tuesday.

A largely better-than-expected earnings season has been a bright spot, with over 78% of the 199 S&P 500 companies that have reported so far surpassing profit expectations.