While still positive for the year, markets gave back some of the recent gains in the face of continued uncertainty.

I was pleased when last week the markets rose.

December was neither kind to the markets nor to investors.

We continue to see fallout from the events that led to the rapid decline of FTX.

Volatility returned this week with some wild swings in the markets.

The week started off strong but weakened as it went on.

What a week, huh? All it took was an election and a CPI report to cause the markets to shoot higher.

With the most recent report showing inflation increasing at an annualized rate of 8.20% through September.

The magic continued this week as all three major U.S. averages closed higher.

I am happy to announce that the Federal Reserve may be thinking about thinking about (not a typo) future interest rate hikes beyond the early November meeting.