Market is unprepared for the inflation fallout, Wharton’s Jeremy Siegel warns

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Wall Street may be on the verge of an uncharacteristically painful quarter.

Wharton finance professor Jeremy Siegel, who’s known for his positive market forecasts, is sounding the alarm on the market’s ability to cope with inflation.

“We’re headed for some trouble ahead,” he told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Friday. “Inflation, in general, is going to be a much bigger problem than the Fed believes.”

Siegel warns there are serious risks tied to rising prices.

“There’s going to be pressure on the Fed to accelerate its taper process,’” he said. “I do not believe that the market is prepared for an accelerated taper.”

His cautious shift is a clear departure from his bullishness in early January. On Jan. 4 on “Trading Nation,” he correctly predicted the Dow would hit 35,000 in 2021, a 14% jump from the year’s first market open. The index hit an all-time high of 35,631.19 on August 16. On Friday, it closed at 34,326.46.

According to Siegel, the biggest threat facing Wall Street is Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell stepping away from easy money policies much sooner than expected due to surging inflation.

“We all know that a lot of the levity of the equity market is related to the liquidity that the Fed has provided. If that’s going to be taken away faster, that also means that interest rate hikes are going to occur sooner,” he noted. “Both those things are not positives for the equity market.”

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