NEW YORK It was one declining figure that outperformed all others in a year full of huge figures, including significant advances for stocks and even more amazing flights for cryptocurrencies.
The curse of the world economy, inflation, abated this year. It is still really high, especially in light of the many years of low inflation that everyone experienced prior to the United States’ inflation rate surpassing 9% two summers ago. However, it has cooled enough that investors are beginning to consider a 2024 when interest rates might be headed lower rather than higher. Global inflation is thought to have decreased from 8.7% to 6.9% in the previous year.
Surprisingly, despite initial concerns that a recession would be unavoidable, the U.S. economy likewise managed to weather the year. For a while, there was even concern that the economy would be too robust, which would have increased inflationary pressure and compelled the Federal Reserve to maintain higher interest rates for longer.
This resulted in paradoxical situations where Wall Street, so long as the economic reports weren’t too bad, actually applauded weaker ones since they preserved the prospect of an ideal landing for the Federal Reserve-engineered economy. The intention was for the economy to contract just enough to quell excessive inflation without going into a recession..