What the Data Said This Week — Mar 28, 2026
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"October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February." — Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson
Mar 28, 2026
Futures Markets Now See a Fed Rate Hike as More Likely Than Not by Year-End — a Probability That Was Exactly 0% Just Three Months Ago
The CME FedWatch tool crossed the 50% threshold for a year-end rate hike on Friday morning for the first time, after Brent crude topped $110 and the OECD raised its U.S. inflation forecast to 4.2% — nearly double the Fed's own 2.7% projection. It is a genuinely strange place for monetary policy to be: the Fed's last move was a cut, its dot plot still calls for another cut, and yet the derivatives market is pricing in a hike.
Source: CME Group FedWatch / CNBC
The Dow Officially Entered Correction Territory on Friday — and the S&P 500 Has Now Fallen for Five Consecutive Weeks, Its Worst Losing Streak Since 2022
The Dow closed at 45,166 on Friday, down more than 10% from its January all-time high and ending the index's worst five-week run in nearly four years, while the Nasdaq extended its own correction to 12.5% below its October 2025 record. Four of the ten largest S&P 500 companies are individually down more than 20% — meaning the headline indexes, bad as they look, are being propped up by the ones that haven't fallen apart yet.
Source: CNBC / CNN Business
Egg Prices Have Crashed 42.1% Year-Over-Year — Making Them the Biggest Price Drop of Any Item in the February CPI, in a Report Where Almost Everything Else Got More Expensive
A dozen Grade A eggs averaged $2.50 in February, down from near $9 at some retailers during the avian flu peak in early 2025, as bird flu losses shrank from roughly 19 million hens lost in January 2025 to about 2.8 million this January. Everything else in the grocery aisle kept climbing — beef and veal up 14.4%, restaurant meals up 3.9%, food overall up 3.1% — making eggs the one item in the entire CPI basket where supply and demand actually worked out in consumers' favor.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics — Consumer Price Index, February 2026
Moody's Analytics Now Puts U.S. Recession Probability at 48.6% — Goldman Is at 30%, EY-Parthenon at 40%, and Every Major Forecaster Is Now Running at Least Double the Historical Baseline
In a normal 12-month window, the historical probability of a U.S. recession sits around 20%; Goldman Sachs raised its estimate to 30% this week (its third upward revision this year), while Moody's is nearly at a coin flip. The economy isn't in a recession today — but the gap between "not in recession" and "likely to enter one" has rarely closed this fast outside of an actual crisis.
Source: CNBC / Goldman Sachs / Moody's Analytics
Import Prices Posted Their Largest Single-Month Jump Since March 2022 in February — and None of That Data Captures the Iran War, Which Began on February 28
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that import prices surged 1.3% month-over-month in February, with export prices rising 1.5% — both the biggest monthly moves in nearly four years. The March report, due April 10, will be the first to actually reflect a closed Strait of Hormuz, which means the current data is, as one economist put it, a look at the economy the day before it changed.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics — Import and Export Price Indexes, February 2026