Minus $ 3.4 trillion: how the Fed brought down the US

In 2021, countries around the world began to ease restrictions related to the covid-19 pandemic , and consumer prices began to rise. However, for several months, central bankers, including US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, have urged consumers and investors not to panic, assuring that price increases are temporary. However, on November 20, 2021, Powell publicly acknowledged that this assessment appears to have been incorrect.

In early November, the US Federal Reserve raised the rate by 0.75 percentage points for the fourth time in a row, this time to 4%. Amid high inflation, rising interest rates and fears of a recession in 2022, leading US stock indicators sank. As of December 7, the S&P 500 index has lost 17.3% since the beginning of the year (to 3941.26 points), the industrial DOW JONES has fallen by 7.6% (to 33596.34 points), and the NASDAQ Composite index of high-tech companies has almost 30% (up to 11014.89 points).

The tightening of the policy of the US Federal Reserve has led to the fact that the largest companies in the US have lost trillions in market capitalization, writes usa TODAY. Corporations such as APPLE, MICROSOFT, Amazon, Tesla and Alphabet (Google's parent company) have fallen in value by $3.4 trillion this year, according to analytics firm Finbold. Since the beginning of the year, their total market capitalization has collapsed by 34%. At the same time, investors are confident that inflation will continue in the future, and rates will continue to rise.