Market Commentary

As expected, the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate by 0.75% to the 3.75-4% range on Wednesday. This was the fourth successive 0.75% hike. The initial market focus was on a new line inserted in the official statement, wherein the Fed nodded in the direction of decelerating the pa …

Stocks ended another strong week, continuing the trend of buyers stepping up in October. Several years have seen October kill off bear markets, and 2022 may join that list. In fact, the only two years that started off worse for the S&P 500 than 2022 were 1974 and 2002, and both of those …

Stocks had a solid week, gaining nearly 5%. The jump was sparked by rumors on Friday that the Federal Reserve will raise rates by 75 basis points in November and then consider smaller hikes going forward. The market has priced in an extremely hawkish Fed, and any slight tilt to a more dovis …

We’ll get to the disappointing inflation data next, but Thursday morning had a pure panic feel to it — potentially the washout that is needed for lows to form.

October is known as a bear market killer, as many bear markets have ended during this month. Some of the most famous were the 1974 and 2002 bears, which both ended within the first two weeks of October. Those bears were down more than 48% and 49%, respectively, when the ultimate lows took p …

October Is Misunderstood Good riddance to September, as both stocks and bonds had another rough month. When it was all said and done, the S&P 500 fell 9.3% for the worst September since 2008 and one of the worst ever. For the quarter, the S&P 500 lost 5.3%. That was the third consec …