At some point over the past year, the financial media’s inflation coverage transitioned from, “Will this high inflation persist?” to, “Here’s how to cope with inflation that’s here to stay!” It seems some investors have resigned themselves to a new normal of high inflation following decades of below-average consumer price changes.
Most of us have gone through volatile markets before, and maybe even a bear market or two. This might also be your first time experiencing a market cycle such as this one. Either way we want to remind all of you that this is a normal type of behavior for markets.
If you are feeling a little uncertain about the markets you are not alone. The S&P 500’s April return of -8.7% was the 14th worst month since 1970. You would have to go back to March 2020 (the very beginning of the pandemic induced Bear market) and September 2008 (the height of the financial crisis) to find worse months.
On March 16th, the Federal Reserve signaled it will be raising interest rates by a quarter point. The federal-funds rate will be increasing from near zero to somewhere around.25%. This is the first time since 2018 that the Fed has increased interest rates.....
The recent market volatility has not been fun to go through. In fact, January 2022 has been one of the worst starts to a year in recent history. Should this give you reason for concern? While the volatility we have experienced so far this year is not pleasant,...
When is transitory inflation no longer transitory? Last quarter we wrote a lot about inflation; in particular how the Fed has labeled current inflationary pressures as transitory (i.e. temporary) and they were open to “talking about talking about tapering”. Since...