March’s Stock Market Came in Like a Lion, Goes Out Like a Bull

March madness in 2023 might better refer to the crazy action of the financial markets than to some overhyped basketball tournament.

Over the course of the month just ended, expectations about the economy and Federal Reserve policy swung from one extreme to another. Early on, Fed officials were talking up more and bigger interest-rate increases to slow stubborn inflation. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, came the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history. Suddenly, we seemed headed into the abyss of recession.