It’s a cycle that never ends. Inflation rears its ugly head, then the Federal Reserve beats it into submission with quantitative tightening (QT) and interest rate hikes. Next, inflation subsides with or without the Fed’s help, after which the central bankers can declare “Mission accomplished.”

At the beginning of 2023, financial market commentators assumed that a deep recession would occur this year and the major stock indexes would be in the red. Fast-forward to the final FOMC meeting of the year, and stocks are firmly in the green.

There are people who like cryptocurrency, and there are those who don’t. That’s fine, as no one has to get involved with crypto if they don’t want to. Yet, there’s a subset of people – including some government and banking bigwigs – who don’t want anyone to have access to cryptocurrency.

When gold goes down or stays flat, nobody in the mainstream press wants to talk about it. It’s only when the gold price breaks out, especially if it’s through a round number like $2,000, that the pundits suddenly take an interest in the yellow metal.

The Federal Reserve is done hiking interest rates and will definitely flip to rate cuts in next year’s first half – or at least, that’s what the market has assumed and priced into large-cap stocks. Now, the burden falls upon the stock buyers to justify their optimism. It’s a heavy burden, given the actual facts and circumstances.

As the Federal Reserve and Treasury Secretary continue to deny that a recession ever happened, many retail investors assume that the worst is behind them and 2024 will be an easy year of stock market gains. That assumption could cost unwary stock traders a whole lot of money over the next 12 months.

Given the rip-roaring S&P 500 rally over the past several weeks, it appears that the market has already declared “mission accomplished” and loaded up on stocks for the holidays. Their holiday spirits might get crushed soon, however, as the rally is as vulnerable as it’s been all year.

Like an overeager neighbor who puts up his front-lawn Christmas lights in September, the market is too early and too eager in celebrating an apparent victory over inflation. In contrast, prudent investors should look at what the Federal Reserve is actually saying and doing instead of just assuming that Santa’s coming early this year.

If 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg’s predictions had been true, our homes should have been powered by wind farms and our roadways ought to have been filled with electric vehicles by now. As it turns out, phasing out fossil fuels wasn’t so easy.