One of the commandments in Folly is thou shalt not make market predictions. It's not because we're against predictions per se. We just think it's futile to make them, and irresponsible to make them and then not be held accountable. A belief the Gardners have explained frequently, however, is that interest rates can change the trend of the market fairly abruptly. They make no predictions about when that occurs, but are pretty safe in saying that when interest rates rise, it can get ugly for the stock investor.
Today is a pretty clear example of that principle.
The fear gripping the throats of traders is that the Fed won't stop with one rate hike, perhaps embarking on a series of hikes which could give the stock market a haircut, maybe even bringing on a recession. I'll stick to our standard approach, though. No one knows with any degree of certainty what's in store in the coming weeks and months. That's Foolish investing. Copyright 1997, The Motley Fool.