2023 Q2 Review and Outlook
A few short months ago, people were concerned about a contagion of bank failures. The rapid rise in interest rates had stressed some banks to the breaking point, and the US witnessed a couple of the largest bank failures in our history. The Federal Reserve responded forcefully, bailing out depositors, and setting in place a backstop program to keep insolvent banks going. It also stopped reducing the money supply, shifting into reverse and adding more liquidity into the market. Rather than the rash of bank failures we feared, no more banks have failed… yet.
Other data have cooperated with the narrative that the markets and economy can continue strong. Unemployment is stubbornly low. Inflation has been receding, even as economic growth has been solid. The consensus seems to have moved to a “soft landing” or even “no landing” scenario where inflation is tamed, recession averted, and the Fed reduces rates to highly stimulative just because it can.
Keep reading...23 2Q Econ update.pdf