The Best Daily Financial Market Highlights - August 21st, 2022

💎Happy Sunday, Steemers! We have a wild Highlight for you today (memes galore), but first - an update on the market.

• The stock market took a dive for the first time in four weeks.

Why? Rate hike fears resurfaced to the top after the Fed released notes from its most recent policy meeting - we’re not out of the woods yet!

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INFLATION

Are We Reaching the Peak?

The great debate: Has inflation peaked, or was July just a good month?

It might be a little bit of both.

• July’s consumer prices came in at a better-than-expected level.

• Food prices are dropping but remain super inflated compared to 2019.

Let’s look on the bright side - no Sunday scaries here.

Here are 10 common consumer items where prices are falling:

• 🐔Boneless chicken: -23.6%
• 🧈Butter: -13%
• 🥚12 large white eggs: -9.3%
• 🚗Car rentals: -9.5%
• ⛽A gallon of gas: -8%
• ✈ Airline tickets: -7.8%
• 🌭Hot dogs: -6.1%
• 🍅Tomatoes: -2.5%
• 🐮A gallon of milk: -2.5%
• 🏨Hotels: -3.2%

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SUNDAY CARTOONS

Another Meme Stock Saga

Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) has seen the best and worst of times in the past two weeks.

Why BBBY? Similar to the GameStop saga, retail investors on Reddit’s r/Wallstreetbets found a hole in the system. Bed Bath & Beyond is a heavily shorted stock, meaning hedge funds are betting against it hard.

So, thousands of investors banded together to squeeze the stock.

The results were mixed; some investors made out like bandits, and some missed the boat.

• At one point last week, BBBY shot up to $28.
• BBBY ended the week at $11.03.

After Ryan Cohen (investor with a huge stake) sold off, things turned sour.

Highlights: A student made $110 million trading Bed Bath & Beyond.

Lowlights: Many Redditors aren’t afraid to post their losses on the subreddit:

Moral of the story: Don’t “YOLO” your life savings into a stock just because someone on the internet says you could make fast money - you might end up on the wrong side of the coin.

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MIND BREAK

Battle of the Billionaires

Who would win in an arm wrestle? Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg.

Despite the height and weight difference, we’re going with Zuckerberg - it’s tough to beat robotic strength.

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RECESSION

Ask a CEO

Will the U.S. economy avoid a recession?

• 3% of corporate executives said "yes".

The other 97% are bracing for a recession — or they at least think the U.S. economy is already in one, according to a new survey.

A growing consensus: Many companies and executives feel the Federal Reserve will trigger a recession as it battles inflation with more and more aggressive interest rate hikes.

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CURRENCY

The Dollar's Rebound

The U.S. dollar had its biggest weekly gain since April 2020.

The Euro was down 0.54% to $1.0034 against the dollar, which put it back near even with the greenback.