Briefing.com's O'Hare: This market won't overcome inflation, high rates forever

Patrick O'Hare, chief market analyst at Briefing.com, says he is concerned about the sustainability of earnings growth, and what it will mean for the market as profits, even if it's more a normalization of profits and not some implosion. particularly in artificial intelligence-powered sectors — normalize. O'Hare has concerns about sticky inflation and high interest rates, mixing into a strong cocktail of side effects for the market. He noted that while the 10-year Treasury has come down from its recent highs, the market hasn't benefited as might be expected "because there are concerns that are starting to percolate about the growth outlook."

Kendall Dilley, portfolio manager at Vineyard Global Advisors, says he is concerned by the market's narrow focus and lack of wide stock support to the upside, but he's still bullish through at least the end of the year, noting that markets historically see choppy consolidative price action heading into a midterm election, then rally afterwards. He noted that post-election day gains have averaged roughly 5.5 percent, with that increase happening in 85 percent of midterm election years. Dilley hopes that rally will broaden the market's upside participation; if it doesn't, that will be a red flag, alerting to potential trouble in the new year.

Chip Lupo of WalletHub discusses the site's 2026 Halloween Spending and Financial Fears Survey, which found that more than two-thirds of Americans think Halloween is too expensive, with slightly more people saying they're planning to cut their financial layouts this year compared to last year. Speaking more broadly about financial fears around the holiday, the survey found that 88 percent of people are "fearful" of this economy, with a large chunk of that group being most scared about sticky inflation.