If the US Federal Reserve tends to tighten hard until something breaks, as some investors still believe despite the central bank’s denials, then it may have heard an unnerving crunch. The Fed’s favoured bond market measure of a coming recession just cracked. The Fed has raced to jack up interest rates this year to get across an inflation surge spurred by a Russia-related energy shock - and will do so again next week. And there’s been no shortage of financial turbulence, market liquidity scares, domestic housing stress and dollar pressures in the interim. But despite endless handwringing that the monetary squeeze will ... (full story)