Market Commentary

Inflation continues to move sharply higher. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.6% last month and is up 7.5% in the last 12 months. The annual gain is the highest since February 1982. Big gains in energy and food helped fuel the outsized price hikes. Core CPI, which excludes food and ener …

 The U.S. jobs market provided most of the major economic news last week. The latest establishment survey estimated 467,000 jobs were added in January. Regular revisions in the most recent months added an additional 709,000 jobs. The job market appears stronger than expected.

Equity markets wrapped up a volatile week with a late-Friday surge that pushed the S&P 500 to a 0.8% gain. Each day last week experienced a swing of at least 2.25%. Ongoing concerns about interest rates, inflation, valuations, and geopolitical challenges are contributing to swings in the market.

Equity markets have given back some of last year’s gains. Higher interest rates appear to be the major cause. As the Federal Reserve prepares for its first meeting of the year, investors have raised the odds of four interest rate hikes to approximately 70% from less than 30% one month ago ( …

Inflation remains a challenge to the U.S. economy. CPI rose 0.5% in December and surged 7.1% during the last year. It wasn’t all food and energy prices. Core inflation, which excludes those more volatile elements, increased 0.5% as well. As the bright blue line in Figure 1 shows, inflation …

The employment report released last week may have raised more questions than it answered. The establishment survey, which surveys businesses, showed only 199,000 jobs were created, missing expectations of 400,000 (Figure 1). The household survey gave a very different picture. Unemployment f …