What the media was worried about – January 2022

I read something a couple years ago that went like this: “If you want to know how important the news is, read the headlines from two weeks ago.”  I wanted to see how that rule of thumb really held up so I made a list of items the media was worried about every month for a year.  I either chose the exact right or exact wrong time.  It was 2020.   Coronavirus went from lower case to upper case and back within the first six months of 2020 as the nation became aware of it and then adapted.  World War III, President Bernie, UFOs are real, MURDER HORNETS, Davey Daytrader, Plague Squirrels, No really – UFOs are real, 17 year old hacks Twitter’s biggest accounts, fire tornados out west, vinyl music sales surpass CDs for the first time since 1986, Metal Monolith in Utah desert, Bitcoin $29,000.  All these things were actual headlines that topped the first global pandemic in 100 years, a contested Presidential election, and social unrest.

I skipped 2021 after seeing how we overweight the daily narrative, but writing down the headlines was helpful in hindsight, especially the outlandish stuff like MURDER HORNETS.  It’s wild to think that the admission of active UFO programs was met with a collective shrug.  Where was the Ancient Aliens guy to cash in on that 15 minutes?  I decided to keep track of the headlines again this year and make it public.  It will be fun to take a look at this at the end of the year and see where we stand.

What the media was worried about – January 2022

Pandemic – Omicron cases rising, healthcare workers and teachers all out sick, deaths/ICU admissions steady or dropping

Traders expect 3 interest rate hikes in 2022

Inflation hits 7%, fastest increase since June 1982

Traders expect 4 interest rate hikes in 2022

Wordle addiction grips nation – Wordle bought by New York Times

Jamie Dimon takes a page out of razer companies’ marketing and calls for 5 or more hikes

Unease at Russia/Ukraine border

Coup put down in Kazakhstan

German 10-year Bund yield turns positive

Intraday moves of at least 2.25% every trading day during the last week of January, S&P 500 ends the week +0.8%

Shark attacks are back to pre-pandemic levels

Here’s the final tally of rate hikes expected: