We ended 2023 with plenty to encourage investors, says Ashish Utarid, Assistant Vice-President, Investment Strategy at IG Wealth Management: a robust U.S. consumer, inflation under control and a pause in interest rate hikes (with expectations for rate cuts in the new year). This optimism brought about strong gains for equities and bonds at the end of last year. However, Ashish warns, we may see some volatility in early 2024, given that much of those price increases were due to what was expected to happen in the new year, rather than what had already happened.