Well, the madman actually did it. Jerome Powell torched our rally by all but ruling out interest rate cuts in March. This always seemed like the most likely outcome, but the market is still massively overreacting to this news.
While yesterday’s selloff has stalled—brands are going to need to put up stellar results if they’re going to get the same level of buy-in that folks who reported prior to this fed announcement got.
This makes tonight’s earnings slate critically important. Can Apple demonstrate there’s enough demand to keep their valuation alive this year? Will Amazon keep pace with Microsoft’s incredible cloud growth?
For now, markets are returning to the less optimistic framework we saw during September of last year. Higher rates for longer is a situation nobody wanted to see—but it’s still better than the recession we expected in 2023.
So—let’s examine the most impactful headlines and see what long-term trends are brewing in this economy.