2022 Rate Hike Cycle
January 2022 – December 2022
Duration: 12 monthsS&P 500 DRAWDOWN
−25%
peak to trough
What Happened
TRIGGER
Aggressive Fed rate hikes to combat 40-year-high inflation, quantitative tightening
After a decade of near-zero rates, the Federal Reserve embarked on its most aggressive tightening cycle since the 1980s, raising the federal funds rate from 0% to 4.5% in a single year. Growth and technology stocks suffered severe multiple compression as the discount rate for future earnings spiked. Bonds offered no refuge — the Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Index fell 13%, its worst year ever.
Key Facts
- 01Fed raised rates 7 times in 2022, from 0–0.25% to 4.25–4.50%
- 02Nasdaq 100 fell 33% — its worst year since the dot-com bust
- 03US 10-year Treasury yield surged from 1.5% to 4.2%
- 04Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index fell 13% — worst bond year on record
- 05Crypto winter: Bitcoin fell 65%, multiple exchanges collapsed
Worst Performers
top 5 biggest losersBest Performers
top 5 most resilientSector Breakdown
HARDEST HIT SECTORS
MOST RESILIENT SECTORS
Recovery Timeline
14 months for S&P 500 to recover all-time highs (January 2024)
Time from trough to prior all-time high
PORTFOLIO STRESS TEST
How would YOUR portfolio have performed?
See exactly how much your current holdings would have lost during the 2022 Rate Hikes — and 17 other crisis scenarios including geopolitical shocks and black swans.
Run Portfolio Stress Test →OTHER HISTORICAL CRISES
Historical data is educational only. Not financial advice. Past crisis returns do not predict future performance.