It seems like we cannot go a day without hearing questions about a recession. Will we enter a recession, how long will it last, and how bad will it be? No one truly knows the answer to any of those questions, but we thought we would look at one of the favorite data points economists tend to look at in order to identify upcoming recessions, the Philadelphia Fed Business Outlook Index, and whether it has any predictive ability on stock returns.

The stock and bond markets have been struggling in 2022. We thought it would be helpful to provide an explanation regarding what has been happening, how to think about these issues, and what we are doing about it.

If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is not all it’s cracked up to be--- unless it is the current yield on Series I savings bonds, also known as, I-bonds. I-bonds are savings bonds guaranteed by the US Government that currently yield 7.12% and will increase to 9.62% in May.