As a Charted Financial Analyst serving as the firm’s Director of Investments and Compliance, I oversee the construction and management of client portfolios. How we go about investing client capital involves evaluating a variety of factors that move the markets. Given the economic backdrop for 2022, I thought it would be helpful to address a few of the components impacting the economy and subsequent stock and bond market volatility.

Historical trends suggest the current high levels of inflation will not persist.

 Inflation is higher than it has been for decades, exceeding 7.5% in the March to October 2022 numbers, represented in the purple line below. The breakeven rate between a 5-year Treasury Inflation Protected Security (TIPS) and a standard Treasury is commonly used as a benchmark for what average inflation over the next five years is expected to be. The graph below shows this in orange below, hovering around 2.34%.

What is causing inflation?

There are broadly two types of inflation:

1. Demand-pull inflation occurs when there is too much demand for a limited supply of items (too much money chasing too few goods).

2. Cost-push inflation occurs when the costs of inputs for producers increase, and those costs are passed along to consumers (too few inputs to produce too many goods).

Both factors are helping push inflation higher. Government stimulus in response to COVID and global supply chains having to adjust in response to the pandemic have both had their part in increasing inflation, along with many other factors.

What brings inflation down?

Macroeconomic theory believes that inflation falls when an economy slows down. A slower economy usually means higher unemployment and less spending and investment. This means there isn’t too much demand-pull inflation occurring because higher unemployment means there are fewer wages chasing the goods produced. Higher unemployment also tends to lead to lower cost-push inflation because the cost of labor typically goes down when unemployment is high.

The Fed is still working on a soft landing.

Higher inflation is not healthy for an economy long term. Banks still want to make money even when inflation is high, so they lend at higher rates to ensure they still make a profit after accounting for inflation. Higher interest rates result in a higher cost of borrowing, making any investment (buying a house, going to college, launching a new business, building a new production facility, etc.) more expensive. Households and companies invest less, which means fewer productive and good investments happen, slowing down the overall economy.

Because high inflation is unhealthy for an economy, the Federal Reserve (aka “The Fed”, the US central bank) is raising interest rates. The Fed’s goal is to raise interest rates high enough to slow down the economy and bring down inflation. The concern is that The Fed will be too aggressive in raising interest rates and cause a sharp economic downturn. The hope is The Fed can execute a soft landing, slowing down the economy enough to reign in inflation but not slowing down so much to trigger a major recession.

The job market is still experiencing labor scarcity.

Currently, there are about 5 million more open jobs than people looking for a job. Unemployment is below 4%, near the historical lows we were experiencing pre-pandemic. Due to labor scarcity, employees are seeing their wages rise.

The overall economy is seeing consistent growth.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the most used measure of the size of an economy. Real GDP (rGDP) accounts for inflation. The orange line is a “trendline” for real GDP, based on the average growth of rGDP from 2012 to 2017. As you can see, GDP is not far off from what would have been expected if the COVID downturn & recovery had never occurred. While the first half of 2022 had two-quarters of negative GDP growth (a common definition of a recession), Q3 2022 saw the economy grow.

Company earnings are still increasing despite downturns.

The following chart illustrates earnings growth compared to the S&P 500. The market tends is forward-looking, setting prices based on what is expected to happen. Current fears about inflation & The Fed triggering a downturn by raising interest rates too much too quickly are pushing the market down. Earnings reflect what companies earned in the previous three months. While there is a lot of anxiety about the state of the economy, companies are continuing to earn money and will continue to do so even in a downturn.

What does this mean for you and your portfolio?

In conclusion, there are contradictory messages. The economy quickly recovered from the global pandemic, and the workers are enjoying a solid labor market with wages rising. The positive economic news is contrasted with poor investor experience in the stock market. Concerns about high inflation and The Fed’s anticipated aggressive rate hikes to combat inflation have the market worrying about a recession. With all this happening, companies have continued to grow their earnings.

While there is conflicting information in the short term, we continue to anticipate long-term growth in the economy and stock market. Having a sound financial plan that accounts for downturns and uncertainties is crucial. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about your plan or have had any changes in your financial situation.

All data courtesy of YCharts Nov 29, 2022.

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