History shows we could be nearing the end of the stock market's 2022 correction.
"The current correction in stocks is overdue: we have not had a 10%+ S&P 500 correction since the quick bear market of March 2020. 10%+ corrections have occurred once per year on average since 1930, and have lasted on average 54 trading days before lifting more than 10% from the trough (since January 3, the market has dropped 13% as of Wednesday's low and Thursday is the 45th trading day)," pointed out Bank of America strategist Savita Subramanian in a new note.
Despite the compelling history lesson (which suggests we are nine sessions away from a short-term market bottom), there is still a lot coming at investors that could easily take stocks into a bear market.
Brent crude oil prices traded around $112 a barrel Thursday as traders continued to digest the Biden administration's ban of imports of Russian oil, liquefied natural gas and coal in response to the country's war on Ukraine.
Prices are off their highs of nearly $139 a barrel on optimism U.S. oil majors such as Exxon and Chevron will produce more to make up for any lost Russian output.
Oil prices have surged roughly 25% since Ukrainian war.
Prices at U.S. gas pumps have skyrocketed above $4 a gallon on average,notes AAA. Prices have climbed north of $5 a gallon in California.
"It is not unfathomable for prices to rocket to $200 a barrel by summer, spur a recession and end the year closer to $50 a barrel ($200 call options have been bid),"said RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Tran on Yahoo Finance Live.
Meanwhile, large Western companies from McDonald's to American Express have suspended operations in Russia due to its war. The financial impacts of these companies taking action against Russia — and their global ramifications — could weigh on corporate earnings in the quarters ahead.
All of these factors combined have Wall Street pros such as Tran worried about a potential U.S. recession this year.
Whether one happens is unclear, but it's something the market will have to likely begin factoring in.
"I have seen a few recessions over my career and they aren't fun," XPO Logistics CEO Brad Jacobs said on Yahoo Finance Live. "I don't know that we are close to a recession. Right now the consumer is very, very strong and the industrial economy is in its early beginnings of growth. We do have to watch the effect of the European war and how that affects the world economy. We do have to look at how oil prices affect the world. And we do have to see how the Fed lands the plane in terms of raising interest rates in a careful way. But we are not close to a recession, absent some big geopolitical jolt. There is too much strength in the economy right now."
