The Federal Reserve didn’t raise rates last week but left the door open for one more rate hike in the final two meetings of 2023. This was widely expected, but markets still didn’t like Chairman Jerome Powell’s comments in his post-meeting press conference.

Stocks closed lower last week, even as the latest data shows the U.S. is still doing well from an economic standpoint. Not a lot of new numbers were released, but the ones that were generally surprised on the upside.

Now that summer is winding down and we’re beginning to look forward to the fall, the overall mood (and the weather) needs an adjustment. Markets are in a mood and have begun to traffic in rumor and innuendo with the combination of a dismal news cycle, scant data, higher gas prices and stubborn inflation.

Everyone seems to believe we are on the brink of a recession, and the debate is about when it will start, how long it will last, and how severe it will be. Anyone who works in any sort of forecasting knows these three pieces of information are vital to formulating a forecast, and right now, we don’t have answers to any of these questions.