The third quarter of this year has been marked by continued economic uncertainty, with national challenges related to equity market volatility and inflation, and global concerns over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, supply chain issues, the slowdown in China, and potential Covid resurgences. September’s newly released Inflation Report, revealing the consumer-price index accelerated to a new four-decade high, did little to quell concerns, instead it solidified Fed plans to continue raising rates at the most aggressive pace since the early 1980s (WSJ). However, some still maintain that a serious U.S. recession may be avoidable, as was echoed in a report by Northern Trust: “We continue to expect any recession to be relatively shallow as we don’t see structural excesses evident in today’s U.S. economy. Household and corporate balance sheets appear healthy, bank lending standards have remained strong, and there has already been quite a bit of speculative excess wrung out of risk-asset markets.”
