August 9, 2022—A pivotal earnings season is nearly in the books, and the results have given fodder for the bulls. The S&P 500 index is up 9% since earnings season kicked off on July 16. Importantly, this is also a period that has coincided with declining energy prices, lower interest rates, and a Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting for which market participants exhausted themselves reading between the lines.
July 26, 2022—It’s hard to avoid the “R” word these days. The question of whether the economy is headed toward a recession has been front and center, almost superseding concerns about inflation. During our May webinar “Growth Scare or Recession?”, we explained our reasoning for the U.S. to avoid the latter, but since that time the risks have risen noticeably.
July 1, 2022 — As the Federal Reserve (Fed) has turned ever more hawkish with each meeting there has been, appropriately, sharp focus on the accelerated pace of rate hikes. The policy-making Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the Fed raised its short-term interest rate by 0.75% at the June 15, 2022 meeting and raised expectations for future hikes, further driving the debate over whether the U.S. economy will tip into recession as a result.
