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Welcome to the first trading day of 2023. Markets are rising, but they’re not resting just yet – if the past year has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected.
The S&P 500 and Dow hit record highs on the first trading day of 2022. Later that week, Federal Reserve minutes highlighted growing concerns about rising inflation and indicated that officials were considering a rate hike. Since then, stocks and bonds have been hit by the Fed’s hawkish policy, geopolitical chaos, the Covid shutdown, and more. Trillions of dollars were removed from the world markets because it was beaten by.
So what’s on the radar this year? Here are the top market-shaping stories of the past year that will follow us through 2023.
Inflation, the Fed and the recession
Inflation was the market’s top story last year – prices rose around the world, forcing central banks to raise interest rates more than 300 times together.
Inflation in the United States hit a four-decade peak of 9.1% in June, and the Federal Reserve raised rates aggressively in response.
By the end of the year, Fed officials raised the rate at which banks borrow money overnight from each other to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, the highest since 2007.
These rate hikes were intended to cool the economy and reduce inflation, but now analysts and economists fear things have cooled too much and a recession is imminent. The question is: How bad will it get?
Demon
China’s zero-Covid policy has kept large swaths of the country on lockdown for the past three years — stifling business, upsetting citizens and global trade.
Now, Beijing is moving away from its strict policy protocol, and expectations are high for the world’s second-largest economy.
But economists say the reopening process is likely to be volatile. They expect that the country’s economy will be in a difficult situation this year.
Russia and Ukraine
In late February, Russia invaded Ukraine, launching a protracted war that would send global food and fuel prices skyrocketing. Now Europe is engulfed in an energy crisis.
Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, and Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, have warned that Europe may face a shortage of 27 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2023. This is equivalent to about 7% of the region’s annual consumption.
Russia, which sends about 60 billion cubic meters of gas to the European Union during 2022, may completely stop the flow. It may also cut oil production in response to Western price hikes.
SBF and crypto winter
It has been a very bad year for cryptocurrency. In 2022, the value of bitcoin fell by more than 64% as the Fed raised interest rates and investors decided on risk-averse, bear market strategies.
Last year, the cryptocurrency world was also rocked by the shocking death spiral of digital currency exchange FTX and the subsequent indictment of its founder Sam Bankman-Fried on eight felony charges, including fraud and conspiracy.
Elon Musk can add another record to his list of accomplishments: founder, CEO, world’s richest man, SNL host, and now… the first person to lose $200 billion in wealth, according to a Bloomberg report.
But don’t cry for Musk just yet. The CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter is currently worth $137 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. This makes him the second richest person in the world after LVMH Chairman Bernard Arnault. But at its peak in November 2021, Musk’s net worth was $340 billion.
My colleague David Goldman reports that the decline is largely due to the bulk of Musk’s wealth being in Tesla, whose shares are down 65% in 2022.
Last year, demand for Teslas weakened as competition from established automakers increased in electric vehicles. The company missed growth targets and cut production in China. Fourth quarter shipments announced on Monday missed Wall Street estimates.
Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter hasn’t helped Tesla’s stock or Musk’s personal fortune, either. Musk, Tesla’s largest shareholder, has sold $23 billion worth of Tesla stock since his interest in Twitter went public in April.
It’s not all doom and gloom out there. After all, we are not in recession yet. My colleague Matt Egan, a cautious optimist, recently explained why we could be in for a soft landing in 2023.
- Hiring remains surprisingly steady. The economy added 263,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate was just 3.7%, down sharply from around 15% in the spring of 2020.
- The cost of living is still very high, but inflation has peaked. Consumer prices rose 7.1% year-on-year in November, marking the fifth straight month, cooling significantly from June’s 9.1% increase. This is also the lowest annual inflation rate in nearly a year.
- Gas prices fell after the price of a gallon rose above $5 for the first time in June. The national average for regular gasoline rose to about $3.22 a gallon in recent days, but fell to an 18-month low of $3.10.
- Real wages are rising faster than consumer prices, a significant change that could give consumers the strength to continue spending next year.
- Fed officials have signaled that they may be ready to end their inflation-fighting campaign in late winter or early spring.