With Halloween over the weekend, what better to write about this week than what scares us? If our positive near-term market outlook proves to be overly optimistic, we believe one—or perhaps more than one—of these five things will likely be the culprit: inflation, an aggressive Federal Reserve, profit margin pressures, pulling forward of seasonal gains, and potentially overly bullish sentiment.

NFLATION

Central bankers are slowly acknowledging that inflation may be stickier than expected and that risks continue to tilt to the upside. At the same time, the baseline view remains that inflation will settle back toward historical norms over time. How long will that take? While inflation has come down some recently, we believe there may be another leg higher in the fourth quarter or early next year as the post-surge reopening pushes prices higher in areas where it had paused or declined as economic activity slowed, such as air fares, lodging, and used cars.