We made it past the debt ceiling crisis only to be faced with a Federal Reserve meeting this week.
The consensus opinion is that the Fed will pause this month.
There could be a different result with the announcement this week of the Producer Price Index and Consumer Price Index before the Fed meeting.
Many expect the CPI to come in at 4%.
While this is higher than the Fed goal of 2%, it is at least not climbing.
Many have the opinion that a pause this month and then a possible quarter point move in July.
I think that we have come a long way in one year and need to let the economy show its true colors.
We still have the tightening of credit in the financial markets that is gearing the economy down and any further problems in the financial sector could really slam the brakes on the economy.
It seems that we are moving forward and it could be possible to avoid a significant recession.
I think we can live with a bit of stagnation at this point.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock-index climbed from bear market territory last week that started back in October.
There are all sorts of forecasts from the dropping back to 3500 when the recession hits to moving up to 4500 with no recession at all.
This is what drives markets.
I am concerned though that we are starting to see news of Initial Public Offerings from companies that are big on promise but have posted little or no actual profits.
The sad story is that the last time this happened a couple of years ago, we can now witness that a majority of those companies don’t even exist today.
While I am optimistic, it is not lost on me that the majority of the strength in the various indexes and average is located in seven stocks.
It would not take much to pull the market back down.
We have a war in Ukraine and growing tensions over Chinese control of Taiwan.
Iran is getting involved with Russia and they are no friend of Israel.
There are far too many situations around the world that are in conflict or that could be escalated.
It would not take much to upset the cart.
At least small investors can get a reasonable rate on their savings.
It is now possible to shop around at various financial institutions to get a better yield that at least exceeds current inflation numbers.
That is not making you money, but it is at least not losing.
One of my long-time trading friends told me years ago that some of the best trades he ever made were the ones he didn’t make.
