Earlier this week, my colleague Rob Swanke wrote about the relevance of the 60/40 portfolio in light of the current market environment. He asked whether this investment model, which seeks to balance the growth potential of equities with the volatility mitigation potential of fixed income, should be abandoned. Spoiler alert! Rob suggests we need to look forward, not backward, when making portfolio decisions, even though market conditions have changed. While short-term adjustments may help boost performance, the 60/40 portfolio can still be an attractive choice for the moderately aggressive investor.

Inflation has grabbed headlines for the better part of a year now, as the Covid-19 response led to increased demand and supply constraints. That said, short-term inflation expectations have changed dramatically in recent months. In April 2021, inflation expectations for 2022 remained relatively subdued, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) calling for 1.6 percent consumer price inflation in 2021 and 1.7 percent in 2022 for advanced economies. In October 2021, these numbers had moved up to 2.8 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively. Since then, inflation in the U.S., euro area, and other advanced economies has continued to pick up, with the IMF’s most recent report from this month showing inflation for advanced economies at 5.7 percent in 2022 and 2.5 percent in 2023.

What has led to changes in this global inflation outlook? And what conditions are contributing to the IMF’s lowered inflation expectations going into 2023 and beyond?

Over the past few years, many people have been looking for alternatives to the 60/40 portfolio (a portfolio allocation of 60 percent equities/40 percent fixed income)—and for good reason. The Fed’s massive intervention to lower interest rates made the 40 percent allocation to fixed income in the 60/40 portfolio much less attractive. With inflation reaching levels we haven’t seen in decades and the Fed set to push interest rates higher, people have been wondering whether fixed income still provides the protection of principal that many investors are looking for. The Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index’s worst quarter in more than two decades has certainly increased this concern. This pain, however, has put fixed income in a much healthier position going forward with higher starting yields able to cushion investors from further declines in price.

So far this year, we've seen a challenging start for fixed income investors. Rising interest rates caused prices for previously issued bonds to fall throughout the first quarter and into April, which led to declines for most fixed income sectors. As a result, many investors have been questioning what caused the selloff and what lies ahead. But, despite the rough start, there are reasons for optimism. Let’s look at what triggered the selloffs and why the rest of the year may offer opportunities for fixed income investors.

Today’s post will be short, as tomorrow is a holiday leading into a long weekend—and next week is vacation! I have to admit, I am ready to get out of the office for a week. As much as I love Commonwealth and Massachusetts, a warm week at the beach isn’t bad either. Add in a chance to see my parents for Easter, and I’m very glad to be heading out.

Following up on yesterday’s piece on inflation, I wanted to dig deeper into another topic I’ve been hearing about recently: stagflation. When people look at inflation and the fears of slower growth, the idea of stagflation comes back to life from the 1970s and 1980s. But that was a long time ago when few of us were paying attention to economics. So it’s worth going back to basics and thinking about what stagflation is before we start to worry too much.

The most recent inflation data came in this morning, with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) up sharply again. The headline index was up by 1.2 percent for the month and by 8.5 percent for the year (a 40-year high). On the face of it, inflation is approaching a crisis. What if it keeps on rising?

The most recent news bomb taking markets down was the release of the minutes from last month’s meeting of the Fed. The Fed raised rates, as was amply reported. In the following press conference, Fed Chair Jerome Powell was widely reported to be more hawkish, which is to say, likely to raise rates further. But what we did not know until yesterday was just how emphatic the decision was for the entire committee.

We saw a bit of a bounce in stock markets in March, but not enough to recover from a terrible first quarter. U.S. markets were up between 2 percent and 4 percent for the month, and developed markets managed to squeak out a small gain, but everything else was down from 1 percent to 3 percent. For the quarter, markets were down between 3 percent and 8 percent, with blue-chip companies doing best and tech stocks getting hit the hardest.

The housing market has shown exceptional strength after rebounding from the sharp but brief decline in the early months of the pandemic. Many factors have contributed to this—exceptionally low mortgage rates, aggressive stimulus, and the need for more housing as work and childcare were brought home. Now, all of these factors are diminishing while the cost of living is rising due to higher inflation. As a result, the housing market might be heading for a slowdown.