Today, inflation data came out this morning and it was a bit higher than “experts” anticipated.  They were expecting prices to hike 8.0% over last year (12 months ago), but they came in at 8.3%.  Prices compared to last month were up 0.1%. Economists were expecting a drop of 0.1%.  This increase happened despite a dropping price for gasoline last month.

Dear (Confused?) Client:

So much to say, so difficult to figure out. This week has been a big week in economic and
financial reporting. Big companies have been reporting recent profits; the Federal Reserve has
announced a 0.75% hike in their interest rate to fight inflation; the government reported how
much our economy grew or didn’t (it shrank a hair). What does it all mean for our investment
assets?

Dear Besieged Client,

Today the financial markets dropped the most since June 2020, the dark days of Covid.  Please refrain, however, from kicking your dog or jumping out of planes without a parachute.

Hang in there!  As the market continues to rock and roll we find ourselves taking the step backward that I’ve talked about before. We enjoyed the two steps forward for the last few years and now we must hold on tight as we move in the other direction. 

We just recently wrapped up the first three months of the year and it did not come too soon. However, there has been some rebound. At my last dispatch in March, the S&P index of 500 stock performance was down more than 12% for the current year. Since then, as of today we’ve recovered almost half of that loss and are down 7% for the year currently. Meanwhile, tech stocks were down 20% last time we talked and have recovered somewhat to be down 16% for the current year.