The slump follows a record-shattering performance in 2021, and all the major indexes remain above their levels before the pandemic began in 2020. Still, inflation has pulled on the stock market like an anvil, depressing consumer and business sentiment and forcing political leaders to scramble, while a compounding array of geopolitical uncertainty added to the volatility.
The central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate three times this year and signaled that four more hikes are on deck. The, came in at three-quarters of a percentage point, the central bank’s largest since 1994. In sharp contrast to the first year of the pandemic, when the Fed and Congress moved with blazing speed to shore up the American economy, monetary policy this year was designed to clamp down on an economy running too hot. Then the Fed’s rhetoric around fighting inflation grew far more aggressive. Exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the sprawling international sanctions, energy and commodity prices shot up.
Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The BEA’s measure of inflation remained steady at 6.3 percent.On Thursday, the core personal consumption expenditures index, the Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation, rose 4.7 percent. That’s 0.2 percentage points less than the month before, but still close to a four-decade high. Economists had expected the index to come in at 4.8 percent, according to CNBC.
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