The S&P 500 Gets to 3,999

After a dramatic week last week, the stock market is quiet today. The S&P 500 has been as high as 3,999.31. The bears had just enough strength to push the index away from breaking 4,000.

On our Buy List, shares of AFLAC (AFL) got to a new 52-week high today. The duck stock recently raised its dividend for the 40th year in a row.

Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard gave a speech today and she said soon it may be appropriate to slow down the pace of rate increases. That’s not really any sort of radical take on the market, but it’s still interesting to hear it coming from the Fed. In fact, from the vice-chair.

“We have raised rates very rapidly … and we’ve been reducing the balance sheet, and you can see that in financial conditions, you can see that in inflation expectations, which are quite well-anchored,” she said.

Along with the rate hikes, the Fed has been reducing the bond holdings on its balance sheet at a maximum pace of $95 billion a month. Since that process, nicknamed “quantitative tightening,” began in June, the Fed’s balance sheet has contracted by more than $235 billion but remains at $8.73 trillion.

Posted by on November 14th, 2022 at 1:27 pm


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