Americans with stock portfolios or retirement investment plans would likely prefer to forget the last six months.
The S&P 500, Wall Street’s broad benchmark for many stock funds, closed the first half of 2022 with a loss of more than 20% after starting the year at an all-time high. It’s the worst start to a year since 1970, when Apple and Microsoft had yet to be founded.
Investors have been grappling with uncertainty and fear this year following a sharp rise in interest rates as the Federal Reserve and other central banks scrambled to tame the highest inflation in more than 40 years. Higher rates can bring down inflation, but they also slow the economy, raising the risk of a recession. That’s helped drag down the value of stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies and other investments.
On June 13, the S&P 500 tumbled into a bear market, dropping more than 20% below the record high it set in early this year. It’s now 21.1% below that Jan. 3 all-time high, back to where it was in early...
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