Market Volatility
The market turmoil of recent days and weeks—not only the swift damage to equity valuations, but the uncharacteristic volatility in fixed income—bears out the risks I have articulated for some time about this extraordinary economic and monetary period. For many quarters, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been walking a high wire between taming inflation and keeping economic growth in positive territory. More recently, the war in Ukraine and new Covid lockdowns in China have violently jostled the central bank from both sides of that wire—along with the nerves of consumers, businesses and market participants.