i  m a fed watcher jay powell had opened the door to 50 basis point rate but today he waved a flag and said  if you do not get it we will do whatever it takes and they are definitely not off the table and not just one it could be more  markets seem to shrug it off did they shrug it off really   well i think it was interesting how the bond reactors versus the shortterm interest rates as well as equities equity markets shrugged it off i think more because they like certainty if powell is reinforcing that they will  they made mistakes that they were saying that their stories were incorrect just admitting that and saying that we are ready to do everything it takes is definitely reassuring for the equity investors not so reassuring on the economic growth and what companies are able to do within the us so you know investors have really been pummeled this year if you do not feel exhausted as an investor just to kind to give you a feel of what we have gone through whenever the vix is over 30 we saw that the extreme period or extreme volatility and historically over the past three years the markets were only in this extreme period for 10 of the time yeartodate the markets have been in this extreme period almost one third of the year for the past 25 months if you do not feel exhausted by volatility great for you but we really have gone through such a period of dealing with multiple stories multiple headlines that create that uncertainty in the markets and powell isd doing his at absolute best to remove the interest rate and monetary policy concerns kathleen some have a different concern that he means it and the fed  s going to move so much that they will tip over the economy and in fact you have to cause a slowdown in order to bring down inflation larry summers arguing that on bloomberg television for months now in that kind of environment i would guess for some depending on what you are investing in it is kind of hard to be unequivocally bullish erin certainly i think we  re talking about potentially creating stagflation we are not too much really talking about any type of recession but a slowdown yes it  s difficult to be bullish if companies are going to be facing this high inflation for a longer period of time but on the other side markets are very bored  if we know we have to get through this period six to nine months we still have very good earnings support even in the face of high inflation we haven  t really seen those earnings  come down so i think the strength in the us economy is still there  it  s really more about valuation  and the buye staying on the sidelinesrs  buyers staying on the sidelines haidi where are you finding value at the moment when it comes to mid and small caps given how much valuations have come down erin right so one of the anomalies we are seeing right now is that mid cap and small caps are actually trading at a 25 discount to large caps and that is really unusual certainly we expect valuation compression in the face of high inflation because it is harder for smaller growth companies  typically it means it just means their premium become smaller they normally trade at a higher forward pe than lower so because we are seeing this massive you know discount you know over more than 30 compared to historical norms even during periods of inflation it really looks like it is holding up much better year to date and so if there  s any dips in that market i think it is just at a safer point as we continue to face some uphill battles within the equity markets over the next couple months