FILE - Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022. – Stocks are rising Monday as Wall Street waits for a report to show whether inflation is continuing to cool or perhaps setting the market up for worse pain.
High inflation and the Federal Reserve’s response to it with higher interest rates have been at the center of Wall Street’s sharp moves for more than a year. The Fed has aggressively hiked rates to their highest level since the dawn of the Great Recession to drive down the worst inflation in generations. High rates can stamp out inflation, but they do so at the risk of sending the economy into a sharp recession and dragging on investment prices.
Treasury yields jumped last week after investors pulled their forecasts for rates closer to the Fed's, which has been saying that it plans to keep rates higher for longer to ensure the job is done on inflation. By the count of strategists at Credit Suisse, this is shaping up to be the worst earnings reporting season outside of a recession in 24 years.
“Price action is not reflective of the deteriorating fundamentals or the fact that the Fed is hiking during an earnings recession — drivers that should ultimately determine the lows for this bear market later this spring,” the strategists led by Michael Wilson wrote in a report. “Risk-reward is as poor as it’s been in our view.”