On May 4th, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 50 basis points and scaled back other pandemic-era economic supports, as it stepped-up its fight against the highest inflation we’ve seen in 40 years.
The end of March 2022 marked the two-year anniversary of the stock market bottom and the end of the shortest bear market on record. Since then the U.S. stock markets have quickly reached new highs, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closing north of 33,000 as of late April 2022 (on March 16, 2020, the DJIA closed at 20,188).
Global equity markets had a volatile first quarter and when the final Wall Street-bell rang on March 31st, global equity markets were in the red, as March was not enough to make up for the dismal returns from January and February.
Too often during uncertain times, we inadvertently compare ourselves to the people around us – and that leads us to make financial mistakes.
The stock market in 2022 has seen large declines. At the center of this volatility has been the price of oil. Oil prices skyrocketed over 50% in 2021 and in the first week of March, leapt a staggering 25% in a single week (the week ended Friday, March 4th).
On February 23rd, the S&P 500 entered its first correction in a long time (a correction is defined as a market decline of at least 10% from recent highs). Technically, the S&P 500 has not seen a correction in almost two years, but that changed when Russia invaded Ukraine.