4Q 2023 Market and Economic Overview

Since the beginning of 2022 the Federal reserve has proceeded with the most aggressive tightening cycle in decades. To contain raising inflation, the reference rate was gradually increased from 0.25% to 5.50% in a period of 16 months.
Unfortunately, the effect of increased interest rates is not immediate on the economy as companies will refinance their debts only at the maturity of existing ones.
The official core Inflation rates went from 4.3% at the beginning of 2022 till 6.5% at the end of August of the same year before starting to invert. The last data published in November is back to 2.5%, not far from the 2% target of the Federal Reserve.