2022 has been anything but kind to investors. Supply shocks and too much economic stimulus led to sudden, soaring inflation. The Federal Reserve did not expected it and wasn’t prepared to deal with it properly. The rise in consumer prices was anything but transient as the Federal Reserve predicted it and did not simply go away. This was then followed by frantic efforts by the Fed to counter inflation with an unprecedented series of outsize interest rate hikes that brought feat to the financial markets, sending both stock and bond prices south. The result: 2022 is the 6th time in the last 94 years that both, stocks and bonds, have finished the year down by double digits.
Sven Franssen