If you want to know why Americans are so grumpy about the economy, let’s start with the fact that despite strong job growth and sizable increases in wages, their incomes are simply not keeping up with inflation. Americans just don’t feel poorer — they are poorer. In fact, they have never lost so much purchasing…
US stock indexes traded mixed Wednesday, as investors tuned in to remarks by central bankers while fretting that soaring inflation is damaging the world’s biggest economy. How are stock indexes trading? The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.01% was up 78 points, or 0.3%, to 31,029. The S&P 500 SPX, -0.38% edged down 3 points,…
It’s easy to want to duck for cover given the carnage seen this year in stocks and bonds, particularly with the Federal Reserve vowing to wage an unconditional battle against high inflation. While inflation running at a 40-year high still sits near the top of the list of worries for many investors, another potential bugaboo…
US stocks closed higher Thursday after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell concluded a second day of congressional testimony with a vow to battle inflation, even if it risks a recession. What happened with stocks? The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA rose 194.23 points, or 0.6%, to end near session highs at 30,677.36, after flipping between…
Historically bad. That’s how the mammoth $ 53 trillion US fixed-income market has performed this year as the Federal Reserve works to curtail high inflation threatening to wreck the economy. To turbo charge the effort, the Fed on Wednesday fired off its biggest benchmark interest rate increase in nearly thirty years. But what does that…
Read More “What the Fed’s biggest rate hike in decades means for the bear market in bonds” »
From Wall Street to Main Street, fears that the US economy could be sliding into the 1970s-style “stagflation” have been percolating. References to the sticky situation appeared in news headlines all week. The Associated Press called it “the dreaded ‘S’ word.” The Wall Street Journal reminded readers of the neologism’s origins as a catchy way…
US stocks tumbled late Thursday to close sharply lower, with the Nasdaq skidding 2.8%, as jittery investors looked ahead to a reading on May inflation due Friday morning. What happened The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.94% tumbled 638.11 points or 1.9%, to close at 32,272.79 The S&P 500 SPX, -2.38% skidded 97.95 points, or…
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will be challenged to get inflation down to 2% and keep it there. For the decade between the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID pandemic, inflation averaged less than the Fed’s target, but all the stars were aligned. That is hardly likely to happen again. Coming out of a severe…
Read More “Opinion: Inflation above 4% may become a fact of life” »
The Federal Reserve’s almost $ 9 trillion asset portfolio is set to be reduced starting on Wednesday, in a process intended to supplement rate hikes and buttress the central bank’s fight against inflation. While the precise impact of “quantitative tightening” in financial markets is still up for debate, analysts at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute…
Read More “Fed to begin quantitative tightening: What that means for financial markets” »
