The recent election of Donald J. Trump marks several milestones in American politics. Trump will be the first American president to serve non-consecutive terms since Grover Cleveland held the office in 1892. He will also be the first to enter office as a felon, convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments.

Trump’s return to office, and the sweeping mandate that put him there, signals a disruptive new era in American politics. Voters across the board appear to be disgusted with a “business as usual” approach to issues including immigration and inflation, which surged in the post-Covid years following Trump’s first term. But many questions remain about whether Trump’s policies and leadership (which was, at best, erratic in his first term) will strengthen or erode the U.S. economy.

Is this all the thanks the Fed gets after guiding the economy to a so-called “soft landing?” No sooner did the Fed slash interest rates by half a point and suggest more cuts to come, than investors pushed the yield on the ten-year Treasury to over 4 percent, giving back gains made over the previous three months.

Forget presidential debates, election year politics and all the rest. The question on everyone’s mind right now is, how much will the Fed cut interest rates? You’d think the entire world economy is hanging on the answer. And in a way it is. Has the Fed landed the plane, so to speak, with the proverbial soft landing? Let’s listen to what the pundits are saying.

Low-probability, extreme events are nearly impossible to predict. Markets can’t price them in, and investors can’t hedge against them. Even harder is predicting the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. One day things are fine, and the next day all hell breaks loose.

That’s what happened on August 5. Before U.S. markets opened that day, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan markets went into a steep freefall, dropping 12%, 9% and 8%, respectively. European markets began to crack. Even gold, normally a hedge against financial catastrophe, spiraled downward. The VIX index (“the fear index”) soared to levels not seen since Covid-19 and the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. By the end of the day, the S&P 500 closed with a loss of 3%.

Volatility was back with a vengeance—and a reward for those who held on. Less than two weeks later, the Nasdaq had fully recovered its losses, and the S&P 500 and Dow had reached new single-week highs.

It was a great first half of 2024 for stocks. The S&P 500 reached record territory, climbing about 15% from January through June. Investors were cheered by a slowdown in inflation, disappointed that Fed didn’t begin rate cuts, and dazzled by the glittering potential of AI. The AI chipmaker Nvidia rose an astounding 150% in six months, briefly becoming the most valuable company on the planet.

As November elections draw near, the threat of election interference from Russia and China looms large. Both countries aim to undermine the stability of American democracy by creating confusion among U.S. voters and pushing them toward extreme viewpoints. Such interference could unsettle markets and have far-reaching consequences for high-stakes issues including U.S. fiscal policy, immigration, and foreign policy.

In weather, an inversion layer is an odd phenomenon in which warm air pushes cold air to the ground, resulting in trapped smog and unsettled conditions. In finance, an inverted yield curve is a similarly odd disturbance. When investors demand higher yields (or interest) for holding short-term U.S. debt than they do for holding long-term debt, something is decidedly off-kilter. Common wisdom says that an inverted yield curve signals a recession. But so far, the pattern is not unfolding as predicted..

Investors had a terrific Q1. But a third of the way through April, the mood may be changing. While investors remain generally optimistic, they are also watchful as high-flying tech stocks show some signs of deflating. A headline that caught my eye today: “Nvidia has entered correction territory. Apple was already there” (MarketWatch, 9-April). For some months, there has been speculation that we are in a tech Bubble, defined as a period in which stock prices are driven wildly high, completely unmoored from economic fundamentals. And yet we are not witnessing the rabid frenzy we saw back in 2000, when day-trading seemed to be a sideline for everyone with a brokerage account.

Shrugging off uncertainty over inflation and Fed policy, Wall Street celebrated its fourth consecutive winning month in February. The Nasdaq closed at a record high, and both the Dow and S&P 500 turned in the best two months at the beginning of a new year since the pre-Covid days of 2019. Perhaps all this good news makes you feel anxious about what comes next. Will markets continue their climb, or are they primed for a fall? As an alternative to predictions and Fed watching, I encourage you to consider verifiable historical data about market peaks, valleys and recovery times over the past 100 years.

Following the broad-based Q4 stock rally, investors entered 2024 with both hope and caution. Trading was choppy, but by the end of January, the S&P 500 Index notched several new highs and a third consecutive monthly gain. For the first month of the year, at least, confidence in the strength of the U.S. economy outweighed concerns about monetary policy. Whether that confidence will remain intact is uncertain.