Investors assess what’s next in the Federal Reserve’s easing cycle ahead of the November meeting and the upcoming election. Kenny Polcari, Slatestone Wealth's chief market strategist, asserts the Fed will do what it needs to do to hold the market ahead of the presidential election, though investors need to tread cautiously to navigate the post-election market.

“I'm not sure it's going to be a completely soft landing. I think we actually want a little bit of a harder one in order to help bring prices down. But I think what the market is assuming or what the market is hoping for, is that we're going to have that they've succeeded in creating this soft landing and that it's going to be all good,” Polcari tells Yahoo Finance, saying that he doesn’t think the Fed needs to cut rates at the upcoming November meeting.

“I actually think the market is trying to tell you that maybe they're not going to cut rates next month. The labor market is not falling apart. The economic data is not necessarily collapsing around us, and there is a risk that inflation is going to start to rear its ugly head again. If oil (CL=F, BZ=F) continues to rally.”

Polcari says, “I think it's actually amazing that the market has shrugged off a lot of what's happened. Not only from the geopolitical side and the conflicts going on around the world but even what's happening here in the United States from the presidential election and the opposite sides that the candidates are on and what that means for the economy, as well as where we are with the Fed and with inflation and with interest rates.”

He outlines, “Here's what I think is going to happen if we continue to see bond yields rise… that's certainly going to cause some headwinds for stock investors, equity investors if they fear that yields are going to continue to move higher. And I actually think they're probably going to move a little bit higher. I don't think they're going to spin out of control, but I do think that's going to be the catalyst that's going to continue going to try to control [and] at least put an at least put a top on how stocks are advancing and let it pull back a little bit and churn.”

The strategist notes, “Don't forget we're in we're three weeks away from the presidential election cycle. The Fed is not going to let the market collapse three weeks ahead of that cycle. They're just not. They're going to do anything they can to kind of hold it in place. It's after the election, after we know what the result is, that I fear that the Fed is going to allow the markets to trade more freely and allow them to pull back. And I think that's why investors need to be cautious.”