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Data Update 3: Inflation and its Ripple Effects!

Musings on Markets

Interest Rates and Inflation Inflation and interest rates are intertwined, and when their paths deviate, as they sometimes do, there is always a reckoning. Put simply, no central bank, no matter how powerful, can force market interest rates down, if inflation expectations stay low, or up, if investor are anticipating high inflation.

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Data Update 2 for 2022: US Stocks kept winning in 2021, but…

Musings on Markets

In a post at the start of 2021 , I argued that while stocks entered the year at elevated levels, especially on historic metrics (such as PE ratios), they were priced to deliver reasonable returns, relative to very low risk free rates (with the treasury bond rate at 0.93% at the start of 2021).

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Interest Rates, Earning Growth and Equity Value: Investment Implications

Musings on Markets

The first is that the Fed Funds rate is currently close to zero, limiting the Fed's capacity to signal with lower rates. for the year are at war with its concurrent promise to keep rates low; after all, adding those numbers up yields a intrinsic risk free rate of 8.7%. for 2021 and inflation of 2.2%

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Inflation and Investing: False Alarm or Fair Warning?

Musings on Markets

In a sign of how volatile inflation expectations have been over the last year, I looked at the probabilities that the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis estimates for inflation rates exceeding 2.5% Embedded in this picture are the multiple pathways that inflation, expected and unexpected, can affect the the values of businesses.