Iris Choi

10/ Fed officials last week suggested they will hold rates steady at their next meeting this month. Economists surveyed by the WSJ put the probability of a recession occurring over the next 12 months as greater than 50%, but the survey has had the same result since October.

9/ But interest rate increases work with a lag and many expect the economy won’t escape a recession all together, it’s just a matter of timing. With current inflation hovering around 5%, the Fed may need to raise interest rates further to reach their target inflation rate of 2%.

1/ Market Musings! It’s now been more than a year since the Federal Reserve began increasing interest rates aggressively in an attempt to tame inflation, a move which many (myself included!) expected to tip the US economy into a recession.

10/ Many venture firms have been holding their portfolio company valuations at the price of their last fundraising round, hoping that the tech market correction would pass quickly but 2023 is likely to bring many days of reckoning for all holders of private company stock.

9/ Steep portfolio markdowns, the lack of exits for venture backed cos and the slower pace of deployment for most venture firms who are sitting on “dry powder”, has resulted in VC firm fundraising hitting a 9 year low in Q4 ’22 of $20.6B, down 65% from the prior year’s 4th qtr.

1/ Market Musings! Stocks finished down for the day last Friday but up for the week after Congressional negotiations on the debt ceiling came to a pause, with participants citing the lack of progress having been made.