HYBB - Above The Noise: Getting Back To Normal

2024-06-28 06:15:00 ET

Summary

• Historically, the US stock market, on average, has performed well in the early stages of a Federal Reserve easing cycle.
• The expectation of an easing cycle and the normalization of the yield curve could help to again broaden market participation.
• Our system is structured to make it very difficult to disrupt the independence of the Federal Reserve.

By Brian Levitt, Global Market Strategist

I'm declaring an end to the COVID-19 environment. Bold comment, right? Admittedly, it feels like a lifetime ago that we were living in quarantine, but the ramifications of the pandemic have persisted. Such is life when policymakers flood the global economy with money at precisely the moment that businesses are cutting workers and slashing inventories. That's not a criticism of policymakers. I believe that true global calamity was averted. Nonetheless, inflation, policy tightening, and fears of recession followed. Some pundits even posited that a new era of inflation - or even worse, stagflation - was upon us. It was only earlier this month when a prominent bank executive warned that interest rates were going to 7%. Or higher! As the gamblers might say, I'll take the under....

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