The biggest financial and economic story in recent days has been around interest rates. Inflation worries flared up again with the passage of the most recent federal stimulus bill, on fears that dumping trillions of dollars into the economy would drive demand—and prices—up. Rates followed, with the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note rising from 1.07 percent to a peak of 1.59 percent on March 8. Stock prices, especially for growth stocks, reacted by dropping, as higher rates usually mean lower valuations.

As a reminder, this written update will be followed next week by a video update, and then back to a written post on a weekly basis. Thanks as always for reading and watching.

Today’s post is brought to you by Anu Gaggar, international analyst, and Giovanna Zaffina, manager, wealth management platform.

This morning, we got some very good news about the recovery. The headline number of the jobs report, with 379,000 jobs created, was excellent—and almost double the expected 200,000. This is good news. When you look into the details, the news is even better. Clearly, the reopenings around the country have made a big difference in the job market. Looking forward, that trend will give us a real tailwind as vaccinations accelerate.

February looks to have been the start of our recovery from the pandemic. The medical news improved markedly, and the vaccination deployment finally got traction. Consumer confidence and spending turned around, and business investment continued to improve. Markets moved up. It was a good month all around. While some areas of concern became apparent at month-end, the progress was real—and significant.

We have had some turbulence in the market over the past couple of days. The bond market briefly seized up, with interest rates up by surprising amounts. This, in turn, shook the stock market, taking it down from the highs by about 4 percent for the S&P 500 and almost 8 percent for the Nasdaq. On top of all that, we have had events such as the ongoing GameStop show and the explosion of SPAC offerings. With everything that is going on, the recent pullback, and the signs of frenzy, is it time to worry? My take: not yet.

*I will be alternating the text and video versions of this update on a weekly basis. This week is text, next week will be video, and so forth. As always, thanks for reading and watching.

I am sitting down with an advisor and a client this afternoon to discuss a portfolio. Usual enough. But in this case, the portfolio looks a bit different. It has a large number of individual stocks, most of which are in the tech space. Of course, it has done very well over the past year or more.

One of the most common types of questions I have gotten recently has been around interest rates. Rates are going up, and the concern has largely been whether this is a sign of pending inflation. As both my colleague Anu Gaggar and I have written recently, the answer is no, higher rates do not mean inflation is coming. They do mean several other things, however—some bad and some good.

*Starting next week, February 25, I’ll be publishing my coronavirus update every other week.