I only joined the market last April, so this is uncharted waters for me. I know FUD over Russia-Ukraine has triggered bearish sentiments recently (at least according to the news), and that concern over rate hikes drove the market into a rather nasty correction in January, but what now? More specifically, I’m looking at a few questions…
1) Are the rate hikes already priced in? I know it’s cliche that “anything you think is priced in already is,” but there’s still uncertainty over when and how much those rates are getting hiked. Are we in for another sharp, month-long (or god help us quarter-long) drop if the Fed decides to shock us with a sudden hike spike?
2) How much longer can this bull run last? This presumes that we’re continuing the bull run we’ve been on since the COVID-19 crash (or if we go back further, since we clawed out of the financial crisis over a decade ago). It’s not “normal” for the market to keep making ATHs so constantly; at some point, we’re bound to see factors that throw us into an actual extended bear market, right? Or have we already priced in the rapid inflation rate as well?
3) Are we still correcting? I wouldn’t be surprised either way, because the market had been hot for almost all of 2021. We just lost pretty much all our gains since the renewed bull run coming out of the September-October sell-off…does this mean we’re now in a sideways market, or is this correction going to be like the first quarter of 2021?
I know no one has all the answers since no one knows what’ll really happen, but are these questions at least worth pondering over?
Leave a Reply