After stocks plunged this week, here’s how to protect your finances during a period of uncertainty: ‘A hard landing will ultimately be unavoidable’

It’s been a hell of a week on Wall Street.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.30%,
the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.57%
and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-1.40%
all closed lower Friday after plunging on Thursday, shedding all of Wednesday’s post-Fed rally.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday hiked the benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points. Fed chair Jerome Powell said the central bank was not likely to hike its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points at its next meeting, all but promising consecutive 50 basis rate hikes.

“We need to really see that our expectation is being fulfilled, that inflation in fact is under control and starting to come down, but it’s not like we would stop, we would just go back to 25 basis point increases,” Powell said.

As skittish investors digest Powell’s half-point hike, and brace for more, consumers have another set of worries. Two years after the short, sharp pandemic-related recession, Wall Street is once again warning of a new recession on the horizon.

“As skittish investors digest Powell’s half-point hike, and brace for more, consumers have another set of worries. ”

That’s not a lot to go on, but financial-planning experts say it ought to be enough to prompt people to come up with their own contingency plans. That’s especially so, considering the personal-finance scares that came earlier in the pandemic.

The COVID-19-induced recession formally started February 2020 and ended April 2020, but policymakers and regular people are still grappling with the aftereffects.

The Federal Reserve is trying to tame inflation, now at four-decade highs. The concern is that key interest rate hikes…

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