Interest Rates

Many companies do not understand the scope of their interest rate, currency, and commodity price risks. That knowledge gap has the potential to blow up corporate planning processes.

Minutes from the FOMC's March meeting indicate the Fed is "scrambling to get policy back to neutral as quickly as they can. ... to get inflation back under control."

Even dovish FOMC members are now supporting faster and larger rate hikes—likely including a half-point increase in May and a total of more than 2 percentage points in hikes before the end of 2022.

As LIBOR rises—blowing past 1% yesterday, for the first time in nearly two years—more struggling junk-rated borrowers may end up with negative cash flow, unable to pay interest payments on their loans.

Fed ramps up inflation fight in an economy that's tough enough to cope.

Fed Chair Powell told the House Financial Services Committee that he backs a quarter-point interest-rate hike this month, and he didn't rule out a larger move in the near future.

Addressing the big unknowns in the transition from LIBOR to SOFR.

Fed and ECB strategy of moderation is fraught with risks. Still, one Fed president says, "abrupt and aggressive action can actually have a destabilizing effect on growth and price stability. The most important thing is to be measured at our pace."