Even a glowing report or positive press mention is not enough to put the wind in the sails of almost any stock this week (see TTD and UHAL after some glowing Barron’s stories a week ago, for example… more on that in a minute). The market ended the week ugly as we all try to digest the more “hawkish” language from the Federal Reserve.

The result? Apparently we’ve all collectively decided that the risk of a recession has grown more acute, and therefore that corporate earnings are likely to fall over the next year, thanks largely to the inflation-fighting “normalization” of interest rates after a crazy 14 years of (mostly) “free money” policies from the Fed.

The Fed learned its lesson from some “misinterpretation” earlier in the summer, it seems: Jerome Powell can’t say anything that might be interpreted as at all “dovish” about the future, because doing so would undermine the Fed’s efforts to put a damper on consumer and investor sentiment and therefore slow down inflation. They essentially have two tools to use in slowing inflation: They can increase interest rates; and they can scare us into believing that they will increase interest rates even more. This time, they used both.

Next time? Beats me. Inflation is no longer getting worse and is probably getting better, and I think that’s likely to continue, but it doesn’t go away fast… and we’re in an election year and nobody has the attention span to think in weeks, let alone years, so managing investor expectations and our own emotional reactions to the news over the next few quarters is going to be pretty hairy.

The 10-year Treasury Note rate had its steepest climb in decades over the past few months, and jumped again this week as the Fed pushed rates higher, and that’s tough competition for stocks — at 3.7%, that means you’re effectively paying 27X “earnings” for a guaranteed-you-get-your-money back 10-year loan to the government. Those “earnings” from the bond won’t ever rise, but people are getting pretty scared that corporate earnings won’t rise next year, either, so we’re still seeing investors finding appeal in “safety.” Especially short-term safety, as expectations of more Fed rate hikes are boosting shorter-term yields even more — the Two-Year Note now offers a 4.2% yield.

So for the first time in years, “risk free” interest rates are ...