Chairman Powell’s testimony before Congress this week painted a dire economic outlook which will include the continued contraction of the national GDP coupled with continued interest rate hikes.

Now in his second day of testimony Chairman Powell continues to address the exceedingly high level of inflation and the Federal Reserve’s effort to curtail it.

Whether you describe the underlying cause of recent changes in financial assets as a tug-of-war, double-edged sword, or battle of opposing forces, inflation versus rising rates continues to cause market sentiment to oscillate.