It doesn’t seem like there’s much to worry about for investors right now.

The S&P 500 is on track for its best week of the year so far, with a gain of about 2.5 percent and one trading day remaining. That contributed to gains that have pushed the benchmark index up more than 10 percent this year, setting a string of record highs.

Other major indexes, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, have recently traded at or near record highs, as have individual companies as diverse as Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase and Walmart. Shares of social media company Reddit rose nearly 50 percent on their first day of trading on Thursday, a sign that investors are eager to see more tech companies go public this year.

The run was fueled by a wild influx of cash: Investors poured nearly $60 billion into funds that buy stocks in the United States in the week to March 13, a record for data from EPFR Global, which has been tracking for more than 13 years follows the fund flows. 20 years. A subsequent outflow of funds during the week through Wednesday – the weekly flow numbers can be scary – has not disrupted the momentum.

The rally continued this week, despite the Federal Reserve predicting on Wednesday that inflation would remain slightly higher this year than a few months ago. As a result, central bank officials expect rates to fall more slowly in 2025 than previously forecast, and only narrowly maintained their forecast of a three-quarter-point cut this year.

Just as a rapid rise in interest rates sent the stock market tumbling in 2022, expectations of lower interest rates were part of the rise in stock prices this year.

But the prospects for austerity have been slowly deteriorating, shaken by persistent inflation in the first two months of the year. Investors in the futures market had expected the Fed to cut rates up to six times this year, but have recently come to the central bank’s view that only three cuts are more likely. It didn’t seem to matter to the stock market’s meteoric rally. .

For some investors, the bullishness is a sign of the Fed’s waning grip on the fate of financial markets, with money managers focusing instead on A confirmation that the economy is running and can continue to do so, even if interest rates remain high.

“It’s a nice transition that we’ve had from the need for the Fed to cut spending to an economy that supports itself, supports valuations and supports profits,” said Alan McKnight, chief investment officer at Regions Bank. “We’re moving from a Fed-driven rally to an economy- and earnings-driven rally.”

For some purists, this has always been the case. Had inflation cooled more quickly, it would likely have been a sign of an economy slowing more rapidly, prompting a series of rate cuts to support it. While the economy is still running, inflation has encountered some resistance on its way back to the Fed’s 2 percent target, but has also contributed to robust profits for the nation’s public companies. In essence, the purists argue, the Fed has shifted its stance to reflect good news for the markets, rather than allowing investor optimism to remain dependent on Fed policy.

More importantly, investors’ main fear at the start of the year – that inflation could persist faster than the Fed would like, or even accelerate again if the economy falters – has not yet materialized.

“If inflation is a bit high because the economy is strong, that’s still generally good for equities,” said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Asset Management. “As long as we’re not talking about a revival of inflation, it’s pretty good news.”

According to Binky Chadha, an equity analyst at Deutsche Bank who predicted last year’s stock market rally while many were still predicting economic turbulence, investor expectations about where yields will end up this year are now at the same level as futures markets suggested in September. In the intervening period, the S&P 500 has soared, signaling the stock market’s resilience to interest rates that remain higher for longer.

For Mr. Chadha, this means the stock market is “breaking away” from the Fed because of the strength of the economy.

CEOs of American companies are also becoming more optimistic, according to the researchers a recent study by the Conference Council. Companies are increasing the amount of stock they buy back, a tactic seen as a way to push stocks higher. In another sign of confidence, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, announced in February that it would pay dividends for the first time.

Earnings expectations for the first quarter of the year, which companies will start reporting in a few weeks, have fallen but remain positive, with major companies on track for a third straight quarter of annualized profit growth.

Some analysts fear that the rosy outlook underlying the rally may yet disappoint. Despite increasing confidence among top executives, companies have indicated to analysts that they expect meager earnings growth in the future. (Granted, that’s sometimes a gamble to set expectations low enough to ensure they can outperform.) There are also signs that consumers’ finances—the fuel that powers the economy—are coming under pressure. And with the presidential election approaching, companies could hold back from hiring until the uncertainty about the outcome passes.

“Things could get worse from here,” warned George Goncalves, chief macro strategist at MUFG Securities.

It’s a pullback that even market watchers like Mr. Chadha eventually expect, just not as economists and the Fed are revising their forecasts to take into account the strength of the economy.

“Right now the rally is going ahead,” he said.

At dozens of national parks and historic sites across the United States, escaping from it all to enjoy the country’s vast open spaces has taken on a whole new meaning.

Also leave your dollars and coins.

The National Park Service continues to convert dozens of sites across the country to cash-only, drawing complaints and now a lawsuit.

As of June last year, visitors to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park were told they could not use cash to enter the park or use its campsites. The negative reactions came quickly, with visitors expressing privacy concerns and confusion about why the US dollar would not be welcome in the US parks system. Some noted that not everyone has a credit or debit card.

“The National Parks belong to the citizens,” wrote one of dozens of people who complained about the decision the site’s Facebook page. “If we want to use legal tender, we have to do that.”

“So now RMNP becomes like Walmart’s self-checkout,” another wrote under the park’s announcement, which later stopped accepting comments and referred people to official channels.

The park service has been roll out the policy for several years. In 2019, the agency announced it would only accept credit cards, debit cards and special park passes at Pipe Spring National Monument in Arizona. Similar changes occurred at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana and then at Death Valley National Park in California, and this month National Monument Hovenweep in Colorado and National Natural Bridges Monument in Utah, without cash. (Annual passes can still be purchased with cash at many locations.)

In January, Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Las Vegas also switched to a cashless system, and the reactions on the park forum were so testy that Moderators have sent reminders to keep it family friendly.

“I don’t really see this as an improvement in customer service,” one person wrote, who said he was a former firefighter. “No, not everyone has plastic. And if they do, they may not want to be tracked everywhere. Maybe they don’t want to leave a paper trail. Maybe their card is full. Maybe they don’t want their partner to know where they are.’

And he asked: “Since when is legal tender not suitable for use in payments?”

The park service said it wanted to reduce risk and the time employees spend managing cash, and increase revenue and accountability. At the Valley of Death and Nevada parks, for example, rangers collected $22,000 in cash, which ultimately cost more than $40,000 in administrative fees when you factor in the use of an armored car and the time spent counting money and processing paperwork.

Now those complaints are the subject of a lawsuit filed March 6 in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, alleging that the agency’s policy violates federal law that defines cash as “legal tender” and the “legal right of visitors to pay in cash” at national sites, including visitors without a bank account or card or visitors who simply prefer to pay in cash.

In addition to the park service, the director, Charles F. Sams, III, and the Department of the Interior were named as suspects. They did not respond to questions on Wednesday and Thursday.

“NPS cashless is against the law as U.S. money is not accepted as legal tender to visit the country’s treasures,” the filing said.

The lawsuit seeks a declaratory judgment.

One of the three plaintiffs, Toby Stover, a New York woman, drove to Hyde Park, New York, in January to visit the historic home of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the lawsuit said. At the gate, a man in a National Park Service uniform asked if she was there for the 3:30 p.m. tour. She said yes, but was not allowed inside after she tried to pay $10 in cash, the complaint said.

Esther van der Werf, living in California, is also considered a plaintiff. In January and February, while planning trips to Saguaro National Park, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Tonto National Monument, all in Arizona, Ms. van der Werf was told she could not pay in cash, the lawsuit said. And a Georgia woman who is also a plaintiff, Elizabeth Dasburg, was told she could not use cash to enter Georgia’s Fort Pulaski National Monument, the lawsuit said.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Ray L. Flores, II, said in an emailed response to questions that the legal action is being financially supported by the Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit organization founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who has taken legal action against the pandemic. mandates and was criticized for spreading misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines.

Mr. Flores said in the email that cashless policies were “an important part – if not the linchpin – of the surveillance state.” He said he had advised the complainants not to respond to interview requests.

The group’s general counsel, Kim Mack Rosenberg, said the organization supported the action “to push back against the towards a cashless society And central bank digital currency.”

According to the Federal Reserve, there is no federal statute that says a private business, person, or organization must accept currency or coins.

Shares of former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company could start trading on the stock market as early as Monday, which would immediately increase his net worth by about $3 billion — a wealth that Mr. Trump may be able to rely on his mounting legal bills as he seeks a second presidential term.

Trump must urgently come up with cash on Monday to cover a $454 million fine imposed by a New York judge who ruled he fraudulently inflated the value of his real estate in dealings with banks . Earlier this week, he asked an appeals court to suspend the sentence or accept a much smaller bail amount. Last year, one of his political action committees spent $50 million on legal bills.

The upcoming public debut of Trump Media & Technology Group — the parent company of the digital platform Truth Social — could provide Mr. Trump with a way to raise money, but it won’t be easy.

Trump Media is going public by merging with a publicly traded company company called Digital World Acquisition Corporation. Digital World shareholders are expected to approve the merger on Friday after years of delays caused by regulatory and criminal investigations that nearly derailed the merger.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, major shareholders of Trump Media are not allowed to sell their shares for six months. The so-called lockup provision, which generally applies to any company going public, is intended to limit the number of shares available for sale and trading, and also to avoid the perception that early shareholders do not have confidence in the future of the company.

But because Mr. Trump has enormous power over the company with his stake of more than 60 percent, and because his brand is crucial to Trump Media’s success, he could try to circumvent those provisions. Mr. Trump could ask Digital World’s board to lift its restrictions on stock sales before voting on its planned merger with Trump Media.

Or he could wait until Trump Media starts trading before asking his board members — some of whom also sit on Digital World’s board — to waive the lockup period. Trump Media’s seven-member board is likely to be receptive to such a request, in part because it is expected to include three former members of his administration. His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., will also join the board.

Mr. Trump could also get the board’s blessing to transfer his shares to a trust or give them as a gift to a family member. By placing them in a trust, Mr Trump will be able to use the shares as collateral for a loan; a family member could also borrow against those shares.

If Friday’s shareholder vote goes as expected, Trump Media will begin trading under the stock symbol “DJT” next week. Based on Digital World’s current share price, Trump’s 79 million shares will be worth more than $3 billion, on top of the $2.6 billion that Forbes rated Mr. Trump was worth in October.

But it’s hard to predict how Trump Media’s stock will trade, considering it’s currently losing tens of millions of dollars and generated just $3.3 million in advertising revenue in the first nine months of last year.

Once the merger is complete, Digital World’s approximately 400,000 shareholders – most of them – will become part of Digital World individual investors – will become shareholders of Trump Media. And many Digital World shareholders have long been boosters of the stock — and Mr. Trump — on Truth Social. From January, as Trump moved closer to securing the Republican nomination and the likelihood of the deal’s approval increased, Digital World’s shares have soared, up more than 140 percent this year, increasing the former president’s stake became more valuable.

For Truth Social, the merger will allow the social media site to “broaden the realm of free speech and vigorous debate at a time of unprecedented censorship by Big Tech and by the government itself,” a Trump Media spokeswoman said.

Trump Media, based in Sarasota, Florida, came into being in an almost unlikely way. In early 2021, two former contestants on his old reality TV show “The Apprentice,” Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, hatched a plan to create a conservative media giant around Mr. Trump after he was banned from what was then called Twitter. the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Trump was enthusiastic about the idea and just weeks later an agreement was signed. Mr. Litinsky and Mr. Moss would provide consulting services to the new entity, called Trump Media, while Mr. Trump would lend and endorse his brand — in return taking a majority stake.

Truth Social, which has become Trump’s main megaphone for pillorying his critics and political opponents, launched in 2022 as part of Trump Media. The company signed a licensing agreement with Mr. Trump early on to ensure he would post on Truth Social and not other platforms.

The goal was always to take Trump Media public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. The sole purpose of such companies is to raise money from investors and merge with an operating company, which then becomes the publicly traded entity.

Digital World, a SPAC run by Florida businessman Patrick Orlando, had gone public in September 2021 and raised $300 million from investors. The following month it announced a merger with Trump Media, but soon afterward it was discovered that Mr. Orlando and Trump Media representatives had begun deal talks months before Digital World’s IPO. Securities rules prohibit SPACs from engaging in meaningful merger discussions before going public.

The Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into those deal talks and Digital World later agreed to pay an $18 million fine to the regulator, a settlement that allowed the deal to go through.

A lawsuit filed in February by Mr. Litinsky and Mr. Moss, who alleged that Trump Media was trying to reduce their stake, had also threatened to delay the merger before the judge in the case indicated he would let the deal go through while the dispute is being resolved. .

Beyond the immediate personal benefit to Mr. Trump, the biggest question now facing Trump Media is its business future, and what it plans to do with the $300 million that will be transferred from Digital World if the merger is approved .

The deal benefits not only Mr. Trump, but also Truth Social and Trump Media, which have used up most of their available cash. Truth Social remains a relative minnow in the social media universe compared to much larger platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and Threads. So far, about 10 million people have downloaded the Truth Social app – all in the United States, according to data provider Sensor Tower.

Low water levels have forced officials to reduce the number of ships allowed through the Panama Canal, disrupting global supply chains and increasing transportation costs.

But remarkably, the big drop in shipping traffic has not — at least so far — led to a financial crisis for the canal, which passes on much of its toll revenue to the Panamanian government.

That’s because the canal authorities introduced significant increases in toll rates before the water crisis broke out. In addition, shipping companies have been willing to pay large sums at special auctions to secure one of the few crossings.

In the 12 months to September, revenues from the canal rose 15 percent to almost $5 billion, even as tonnage shipped through the canal fell 1.5 percent.

The Panama Canal Authority declined to say how much money it made from auctions. At a maritime conference last week in Stamford, Conn., Ilya Espino de Marotta, the canal’s deputy administrator, said the auction fees, which last year were as much as $4 million per passage, “helped a little bit.”

But even now, during a slower season for global shipping, auction fees could double the cost of using the canal. This month, Avance Gas, which ships liquefied petroleum gas, paid a $401,000 auction fee and $400,000 for regular tolls, said Oystein Kalleklev, the company’s CEO. The auction costs are ultimately borne by the company from which the goods are shipped.

The canal’s financial stability in the face of an acute water shortage shows how the people who manage crucial links in global supply chains are adapting as climate change disrupts operations. It also helps that there are no viable alternatives in Latin America to the canal, an engineering marvel that opened in 1914 and is a an estimated 5 percent of sea trade.

However, if delays persist and costs continue to rise, shipping companies may find ways to avoid the canal. Last year, when the canal was backed up, ships wanting to travel from Asia to the east coast of the United States began passing through the Suez Canal, a much longer journey that required much more fuel.

Many ships still use a western route from Asia even after Houthi attacks in the Red Sea forced shipping companies to avoid the Suez Canal and sail around Africa. Mr. Kalleklev said that after his ships had delivered their cargo and were empty, they now typically returned to the United States via the Cape of Good Hope.

Although Panama is one of the wettest countries in the world, a sharp drop in rainfall last year deprived the canal of the water it needs for locks that take ships in and out of the 40-mile passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Climate experts say such water shortages will become more common.

The weather pattern known as El Niño initially causes warmer and drier conditions in Panama, and scientists say climate change could extend the dry spells. Last year, 6 feet (1.85 meters) of rain fell in the Panama Canal watershed, well below the historical annual average of 8 feet (2.6 meters), the canal authority said. Rainfall in the basin has been below average in six of the past 10 years, including years that were the second, third, sixth and seventh driest since 1950, the authority added.

To save water, the authority has gradually reduced passage from a normal range of 36 to 38 vessels per day until December 22. But higher-than-expected rainfall and the canal’s water conversion measures made this possible Since then, the number of crossings has been increased to 27 one day.

Although the number of passages is still below normal levels, the canal is in decent financial condition, analysts said.

Verónica Améndola, an analyst for S&P Global Ratings, expects canal revenues in the 12 months through September to be about the same as a year earlier, mainly due to the toll increases. S&P Global estimates that the cost of shipping through the canal will rise from $6 per ton to $10 per ton.

This is good news for the Panamanian government, which relies heavily on payments from the canal and faces skepticism about its shortfall among investors in the international bond market. The canal authority expects to pay the government $2.47 billion this year, a modest decline from last year’s record $2.54 billion.

Canal tolls and dividends made up 24 percent of government revenues in 2023, said Todd Martinez, co-chairman of the Americas at Fitch Ratings, which analyzes Panama’s public finances.

“The good news is that the drought will not have a terrible short-term impact on Panama’s public finances because the canal has a lot of pricing power,” Mr. Martinez said. “But the bigger problem is that the government can no longer continue to rely on the canal to solve all its other budget problems.”

Faced with the prospect of permanently reduced rainfall, the canal authority plans to build a large new reservoir that would provide enough additional water to handle twelve to fifteen additional passages per day. Lawmakers must still approve the project, which the authority estimates will take four to six years. Panama has elections in May, but Ms. Marotta, the deputy administrator, said last week that all presidential candidates had told the authority they supported the reservoir.

“There is a great understanding in Panama that life without the canal would be very difficult,” said Sebastian Briozzo, an analyst at S&P Global Ratings.