in seven years could extinguish the scorching stock market, Charles Schwab cautioned this week, evoking a little-discussed factor that could potentially send inflation surging once again.
The potential rise in food and energy prices would coincide with a growing sense of hope on Wall Street that inflation has subsided and the Federal Reserve and other central banks will curb their interest rate hike campaigns. Kleintop notes the last El Niño event concurred with as much as a 15% decline in the S&P 500 between 2015 and 2016, though that crash proved to be short-lived and isAny such decline for U.S. equities would come as a significant surprise amid their broad rally: The S&P is up nearly 20% year to date and more than 40% of companies listed on the index have enjoyed multi-digit rallies.