U.S. employment data for March, released Friday, showed signs of persistent labor market tightness that could prompt the Fed to hike rates again next month.Recession worries are mounting, with investors betting the tumult in the banking system sparked by the March collapse of Silicon Valley Bank will tighten credit conditions and hurt growth.
“Financial markets and the Federal Reserve are reading from two different playbooks,” strategists at LPL Research said in a note earlier this week. For some investors, the Fed’s recent interventions to stabilize the banking system may have revived hopes of a so-called Fed-put, said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide, referring to expectations that the central bank will take action if stocks fall too deeply, even though it has no mandate to maintain asset prices.