Word: stockings
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Federal Reserve Board will not be satisfied with such modest rate hikes. In order to nip in the bud any renewal of inflation, the Fed will begin an aggressive tightening of credit and deliberately push interest rates much higher still. That will cause a chain reaction. It will knock stock and bond prices much lower, make consumer buying and business investment more difficult to finance, and maybe put a stop to what is about to become the longest economic expansion in U.S. history...
Relax. That won't happen. This specter is no more real than the many others that stock and bond traders torture themselves with every now and then, especially when times are good. In fact, inflation is likely to revive only slightly, if at all. The Fed may not tighten at all, and if it does, it will most likely be with a small, one-shot move that's already been discounted. Interest rates a year from now may well be lower than at present...
That is the conclusion of TIME's Board of Economists, which met recently in Manhattan to assess prospects for the U.S. economy and stock market. And that opinion comes from Wall Street itself; on this occasion the board was composed of influential investment advisers, chosen to offer a different perspective from academic and corporate economists. The panelists disagreed considerably on the likely course of the stock market and the broader economy next year and after. But on the subjects of inflation and interest rates they chorused in unison: not to worry...
...sharp further rise in interest rates would be "a dagger in the heart" of the U.S. stock market, says Vincent Farrell, chief investment officer of Spears, Benzak, Salomon & Farrell, an investment firm. But he believes the dagger is well sheathed: "Interest rates have probably about run their course." Abby Joseph Cohen, who chairs the investment policy committee at Goldman Sachs, is more emphatic. Says she: "I think yields on long-term bonds cannot move much higher and stay there on a sustained basis...
...does all this mean that the economy and the stock market will roll merrily along to ever greater heights? On that, board opinion divides sharply...