Following World War 2, the United States was a global industrial behemoth with more than 40% of all private sector jobs in manufacturing. Today, that number is less than 10%. However, the latest jobs report shows “made in America” is at least attempting to make a comeback.
REITs, or Real Estate Investment Trusts, are considered by many to be an essential holding in a well-diversified portfolio. However, many REITs, especially those specializing in commercial real estate such as office buildings, have been horrifically damaged by the dramatic drop in demand for office space throughout the US.
NFT’s, which stands for “non-fungible tokens”, are cryptographic digital assets that exist on a blockchain with unique identification codes and metadata that distinguish each from all others. Unlike cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, that are identical and, therefore, can serve as a medium for transactions, NFTs are unique and intended to represent some real-world asset like a work of art, music, photos, etc.
In a widely-anticipated move, the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates 75 basis points this week. Despite the move being widely expected, financial markets plunged the remainder of the week. So what was the catalyst?
The reversal of the bear market from mid-June to mid-August provided relief for many and hope that the worst was over. However, while the rally was pushing stocks towards positive territory, encouraging an increase in equity exposure, we remained increasingly concerned about the challenging monetary policy and economic backdrop as well as our stubbornly negative market indicators.
Analyst Wolf Richter at wolfstreet.com did a deep dive into the details of this week’s inflation report and what he found wasn’t pretty. While the headline CPI and even the core CPI weren’t worse than expected, Richter found that the CPI for ‘services’ was a “nightmare”, which “spiked relentlessly” to its highest increase since October of 1982.