Will it, or won’t it?
That’s the question most investors are struggling to answer after last week’s shocking inflation reports
They were already well up in April, and May’s inflation figures hit three-year highs. The Federal Reserve’s usual response would be to raise interest rates to curb price-inflating spending. But raising rates in this challenging economic environment could end up doing more harm than good.
Now the rate cuts anticipated to begin later this year have ceded to cautious, defensive bets that they’ll actually start inching higher then. Such indecision, of course, works against stocks. There is one company that benefits from this uncertainty, and all the hedging stemming from it.