The days of ultra-low interest rates are long gone, and the Federal Reserve could begin paring back its key interest rate from a 23-year high later and less aggressively this year than markets expect. High interest rates squeeze companies of all sizes, but that’s especially the case for smaller firms, unlike large companies better equipped to weather the storm. It’s a vastly different reality from when rates were near zero in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the Fed cut aggressively to stimulate a battered economy dealing with high unemployment and a sudden pullback in spending. Before the pandemic, the ... (full story)