It’s not rare that we sit scratching our heads at obvious contradictions expressed by investment markets. But that generally is not because obviously opposing opinions are surprising. After all, any individual trade requires that the buyer and seller have opposite opinions on whether to hold a particular security. That’s not a paradox…it’s a market. But […]
Over the past three months investors struggled with intransient inflation and policy makers’ efforts to tame it. Still, stock and bond markets remain well off troughs set last fall. While longer-duration bonds suffered the most in 2022, the first quarter of 2023 reversed a good portion of those losses as rates fell on account of […]
Over the four-plus decades since Americans last braced against a high-inflation environment, investors have seen interest rates sink to fresh lows and rise to lower peaks with each successive economic cycle. Rates are well off recent depths on account of ongoing efforts to ease upward price pressures, bringing positive and negative impacts along with: Listen […]
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In recent months we’ve sought to highlight the notion that investment markets are forward-looking, meaning that they tend to reflect aggregate investor views as to where global economies and the countries and companies that operate within them are heading, rather than where they’ve been. But what does that mean, exactly? Another Look at Inflation Where […]
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Not the worst year ever in stocks around the world, but certainly among the worst, 2022 proved the absolute worst for U.S. bond markets since the mid-1970s. Though the Fed was as is still lifting its rate target, the final quarter of the year offered a break as investors began to expect a Fed reversal […]
Last month we spoke to the relatively rare occasions that U.S. stock markets failed to show a gain by year’s end. The stark decline and the several failed attempts at a rebound in stocks last year were reminders that markets don’t always go up. Minimally, then, market activity in 2022 highlighted the “you lose” side […]
Most years see some manner of substantial decline in stocks, even as most full-year tallies turn out positive. This year has proved an exception to that tendency. Thus far, at least—there’s still about a month to go. With stocks well off the trough for the year, but still far from their peak at the start […]
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Seems reasonable to expect that corporate earnings are likely to fall on account of inflation-induced weaker profitability and a slowdown in revenue growth. The growth-stall is likely to stem in part from the Federal Reserve’s efforts to tame that margin-crushing inflation, as the Fed directly intends to provoke a slowdown in macroeconomic activity, perhaps even […]
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Many trends suggest progress has been made against inflation, which remains historically elevated across most of the globe. And though mixed in their estimates for how quickly and to what level inflation will fall, survey- and market-based measures for future inflation reflect expectations for a return to more comfortable levels of price change. While we […]
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The third quarter offered few corners to hide as investors shunned risk in most of its forms, with U.S. bonds seeing declines of historic proportions as stocks fell anew upon reemergent fears of a potential recession caused by efforts to combat long-lasting inflation. U.S. stocks continued to outperform non-U.S. stocks, with the strength of the […]
