Inflation is Here
How does inflation affect your cost of living? Can investing in the stockmarket preserve your wealth?
It is hard to avoid the facts, consumers continue to see rising prices and the reduced purchasing power of our hard earned dollars. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the consumer price index (CPI) hit a new 40 year high in March, jumping 8.5%.
Where it hurts the most: Fuel, transportation, and meat products have seen the steepest increases. Oil prices have increased over 60% in the past year. The increase in fuel costs has impacted transportation and supply chain, driving prices up across almost every industry.
The Federal Reserve bank is tackling inflation head on with interest rate hikes. Fed chairman Jerome Powell will raise interest rates by a half percentage point this month and begin approving plans to start shrinking the central bank’s $9 trillion asset portfolio next month.
Why it matters: The moves are meant to slow economic growth and ease inflation. Higher interest rates though mean less capital, and the recent volatility in the U.S. stock market has reflected the uncertainty investors feel. Growth tech stocks in particular have struggled since the start of the year and fears loom about the economy tipping into recession. Gross domestic product (GDP) in the U.S. declined at a 1.4% pace in the first quarter of 2022, missing the mark of an expected 1% gain.
What can you do? As cost of living continues to creep up, you may be looking into cutting back on spending or maybe even relocating to more affordable pastures. But it may not be enough to simply save. Even the best so-called "high yield" savings accounts offer less than 1% annual percentage yield.
The bottom line: Watching your 401k get beaten down in the current market can be frightening for the average investor, but Olive investors hold the keys to winning in a volatile market.
Between October 2021 to April 2022, all Olive picks strategies had win rates of over 90%.* In the same time period, all of the corresponding SPY and QQQ cohorts had a negative return. Join Olive today and start using options to win.
*Win rate defined as having an even or positive maturity value. Maturity value is the intrinsic, not mark-to-market, value of the options underlying each strategy.
