Monthly Investment Updates

There were a host of worries this October that might have kept us from following the yellow brick road to financial prosperity.

Markets marched expeditiously higher in July as investor optimism increased on signs that inflation may be softening.

Investors would have done well to follow this advice in August as Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve Chair, dominated the economic narrative and the movement of the markets.

The old investing adage, “don’t fight the Fed”, was in full force in August as both stocks and bonds declined after hearing a more resolute tone from Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell, regarding the path of interest rate hikes in pursuit of blunting inflation.

Alfred Kahn, President Jimmy Carter’s “Inflation Czar”, uttered this phrase in 1978 after he infuriated the president by pointing out the possibility of a recession.

Markets marched expeditiously higher in July as investor optimism increased on signs that inflation may be softening.

US stocks, as measured by the S&P 500 index, reached an all-time high in late December of 2021.

For markets, economies, and geopolitics, 2022 has felt like all bad news.

April was an abysmal month for most risk assets, with the S&P 500 index (large US companies) declining nearly 9 percent bringing year-to-date losses for the index to almost 13 percent.

Equity markets are once again in correction territory (defined a decline of 10% or more) with some parts of the market, such as technology stocks, officially in a bear market (a decline of 20% or more).