Gabelli Radio

Hi, I’m Charlie LaRosa, and here is our take “On The Markets” for January 2022. US equities came under pressure in January as the S&P 500 suffered its biggest monthly pullback since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. Historically, a weak first month hasn’t necessarily led to a year of negative returns. In the past 20 years, the S&P 500 has fallen 3% or more in January on six occasions. Five of those occasions, the S&P 500 was back in positive territory before year-end – the only exception was 2008. Much of the volatility during the month can be attributed to the Fed embarking on a plan to raise interest rates, with a policy statement from the central bank that it could start to do so as soon as March 2022.  Fed Chair Powell’s press conference comments were widely perceived as hawkish, implying that we may see more rate hikes this year than originally anticipated by the markets. The Fed is also in the process of shrinking its record balance sheet at a faster pace through quantitative tig