The Waiting Game

In this buzz: This week is all about the waiting; March CPI ; IMF and more…

This week is all about the waiting.
– Waiting for tomorrow’s March CPI data for clues about what the Fed may do.
– Waiting for earnings season to kick off on Friday with banking giants JPMorgan and Citigroup reporting Q1 earnings.
Most analysts are pessimistic about Q1 earnings overall. They are worried that companies will not be able to sustain the results with which they ended 2022.

There’s plenty of doom and gloom during our waiting period.
– Wells Fargo released a statement that investors should expect a 10 percent correction in the stock market “soon”.
– The IMF isn’t exactly spreading sunshine over the markets either. The IMF recently cut is GDP forecasts, saying it expects the weakest global growth since 1990.

Short-term, …
… the International Monetary Fund expects growth of only 2.8% this year, followed by a tepid 3% in 2024. This weak forecast is qualified by the statement that it “assumes that the recent financial sector stresses are contained” … not very comforting imho.❗Five years from now, the IMF expects global growth to be around 3%, which is its lowest medium term forecast in three decades. Great.

In the meantime, I guess we’ll continue to wait.