The S&P 500 is down 5 percent this year despite tremendous year-over-year earnings growth. One of the primary factors weighing on the market: fear over the ongoing international trade war, particularly with China. President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited the U.S. trade deficit with China as grounds for the trade war….CLICK for complete article

Due to the expected slowing global economy, stock market turmoil and the growing headwinds from rising interest rates, some analysts are holding out hope that the Fed might slow the pace of further hikes—even if this goes against the consensus.

It is widely anticipated that the Fed will hike interest rates again this month, which would be the fourth this year, with Fed members noting during a late September meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee that “participants generally anticipated that further gradual increases in the target range for the federal funds rate would most likely be consistent with a sustained economic expansion, strong labor market conditions, and inflation near 2 percent over the medium term”.

Looking ahead to 2019, Fed officials expect at least three rate hikes will be necessary, and one more in 2020. Fed officials expect the key rate to rise to 2.4 percent at the end of the year, 3.1 percent at the end of 2019 and 3.4 percent at the end of 2020, according to their median estimate.  CLICK for the rest of the article