HELENE MEISLER: Overall, my big picture for the market hasn't changed. I still think we're in a big trading range, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. I've written about this for months, for a year maybe. So I don't think anybody has to get excited, new bull market, new bear market. I don't think that has to be front and center right now. So with that being said, I'm watching the banks on this leg down, and I'm watching the utilities, on this leg down, and staples.
And that's because I think those three groups have been most affected by the rise in interest rates that we've gotten this summer. And if they start to hold, or at least the selling starts to dry up, that probably means rates are peaking for the time being. And that, I think, is what can help a rally come about.
SARA SILVERSTEIN: And for the market in general, is rates what will break us out of that trading range for the market overall as well?
HELENE MEISLER: I suppose. I think, I don't want to say I'm in the higher for longer camp because I feel like that's gotten very crowded right now. But I think when you look at a very long term chart of interest rates, where we are now, let's call it the 3% to 6% range, that's where we've lived for most of the last how many decades. And so perhaps all that time that we spent below 3% was an anomaly over the last 10-plus years, just like all that time we spent in the '70s and early '80s up in the teens was an anomaly.
And so when we talk about interest rates peaking and going back down, I'm not thinking that we're going back down to 2%. I'm thinking maybe you back off to 3, 3 and 1/2, something like that. So I think anybody who's looking for interest rates to go back to zero, where we were for so long, I think they're going to be waiting a long time.