To say that it has been a perilous stretch for bullish stock investors on Wall Street lately is a bit of an understatement.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.59% is off 7.7% to date in 2022, which would be the worst start to a year for blue chips since the COVID pandemic took hold in the U.S. in 2020, when it declined a whopping 14.69%.Markets are slumping amid a litany of issues and sentiment that has been shaky, with a key measure of the U.S. economy’s overall health, gross domestic product, shrinking at a 1.
Out-of-control inflation and a Fed that is eager to stamp it out with higher benchmark interest rates also have been a recipe for ferocious price swings.However, there are some signs that inflation may be cooling. Overall inflation rose 6.6% in March from a year earlier, an acceleration from February, but the move represented a decline when factoring food and energy costs, with a rise of 5.2% last month from a year earlier, according to the government.
“We also reiterate the fact that holding stocks in a bull market is practice, while holding them in difficult times is the Super Bowl,” he said. “Markets sold off in anticipation of the Fed’s first-rate hike in March, only to rally some 10% after the announcement,” Hogan said.