While many pundits in the investment world are willing to offer their opinions about the future, what makes a market isn’t any one person’s perspective: it’s the collective opinion of all participants.
At the start of the year, that collective opinion wasn’t very optimistic.
Most discussion revolved around how a recession in the U.S. economy would unfold in the wake of the Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. Would it be a ‘hard landing’ or a ‘soft landing’?
The prospect of a recession with higher unemployment, lackluster consumer spending, stagnant corporate earnings, and falling inflation seemed unavoidable. In response, the Federal Reserve would be expected to cut interest rates to stimulate growth.
It is clear the collective view of the economy and interest rate cuts changed, and this was just one of several surprises in the first quarter. Read our Q1 market update to learn what those were, and get our perspective on it all.
