Business

(NEW YORK) — The labor group behind the first-ever U.S. union at Amazon has thrown its support behind organizing campaigns at two additional warehouses.

Amazon Labor Union, the worker-led union behind the victory at an Amazon warehouse in New York City in April, reached agreements to provide organizing and financial assistance for workers trying to unionize warehouses in Albany, NY. and Campbellsville, KY., who will affiliate as formal chapters of the union, ALU President Chris Smalls told ABC News.

The development demonstrates the appeal of worker-led union campaigns and raises the possibility that the momentum built by the initial labor victory will foster unionization at other warehouses, experts said.

But they cautioned that the size of Amazon warehouses and well-resourced anti-union efforts from the corporation will continue to make the labor campaigns difficult.

“This shows workers are coming together,” said Jordan Flowers, a co-founder of ALU. “These workers want to see a union now, and they’re choosing ALU.”

The two organizing partnerships with ALU were first reported by More Perfect Union.

Workers organizing at a third facility in Garner, North Carolina are in discussions with ALU about partnering with the union, Ryan Brown, an Amazon warehouse worker involved in the labor campaign at the facility, told ABC News.

“We’re going to assist them 100%,” said Smalls, the ALU president and former Amazon warehouse worker. “Whatever they need: Resources, money, going out there.”

He acknowledged that the labor campaigns in Albany and Campbellsville remain in the “infancy stage.”

In a statement to ABC News, Amazon expressed its general opposition to union campaigns.

“Our employees have the choice of whether or not to join a union. They always have,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said. “As a company, we don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees. Our focus remains on working directly with our team to continue making Amazon a great place to work.”

ALU, an independent union initially fueled by fundraising on a GoFundMe page, carried out a monthslong organizing campaign at the 6,000-employee warehouse on Staten Island that proved one of the most significant labor victories in the U.S. in recent decades.

After the union victory, Amazon filed objections with the National Labor Relations Board seeking to overturn the outcome, including allegations that NLRB officials showed a favorable bias toward the workers and that union leaders bribed colleagues in an effort to win their support. The ALU has rejected those claims. The NLRB hearings are ongoing.

In May, ALU lost a second union election at a neighboring warehouse on Staten Island. The partnerships with workers in Albany and Campbellsville mark the first labor campaigns announced by the ALU since the two union drives on Staten Island.

Matt Littrell, a warehouse worker involved in organizing at the warehouse in Campbellsville, told ABC News that employees want the company to address the grueling pace of the work and uncomfortable heat inside the building.

“The same issues come up time and time again, and they have for many years, yet management is very apathetic toward those,” he said.

The workers, who began organizing several months ago, were drawn to the worker-led nature of the ALU, he added.

“We wanted to go with a union made up of workers and people who understand our unique environment,” he said.

The organizing partnerships with ALU highlight the significance of the union’s victory, Rebecca Givan, a labor studies professor at Rutgers University, told ABC News.

“To prove that success is possible is huge,” she said. “The inspiration to stay and organize and fight to improve things is really significant.”

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(NEW YORK) — Elon Musk is terminating his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

“Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to ‘make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform'” and did not receive it, the filing stated.

Fake accounts have become a sticking point in Musk’s rollercoaster bid to acquire the social media platform, with the Tesla CEO previously threatening to end his agreement over concerns about the prevalence of bot and spam accounts

In the filing on Friday, Musk’s attorney claimed that Twitter “is in material breach of multiple provisions of that agreement” and appears to have made “false and misleading representations” when entering into the agreement.

Twitter stock is down about 6% in after-hours trading.

ABC News’ has reached out to Twitter for comment.

ABC News’ Joshua Hoyos contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — The federal fraud case against the top executives of the failed biotech company Theranos posed an interesting tale of two different trials, according to ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis.

Jarvis, the host and creator “The Dropout,” ABC News’ podcast that chronicled the case against its founder Elizabeth Holmes, spoke with “Start Here,” Friday following the conviction of Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the former president and COO of Theranos, on fraud charges.

A jury on Thursday convicted Balwani, Holmes’ former romantic partner, on 12 counts of fraud for his role in defrauding investors and patients.

The company claimed it could run any blood test using only a few drops of blood via its so-called proprietary technology. However, according to prosecutors, their product, a machine called “Edison,” could never run more than a dozen blood tests at a time.

Balwani joined Theranos in 2009, six years after Holmes created the startup, and quickly rose to be its president and chief operating officer.

Holmes, who faced 11 counts of fraud, one less than Balwani, was convicted on only four counts of fraud in January, which related to investors.

The feds originally charged Balwani and Holmes together, but their trials were later severed after Holmes revealed she may testify to abuse at the hands of Balwani. He denied those allegations.

Jarvis said Holmes taking the stand was a key factor in the different outcomes.

“[The abuse claims] did not come up at his trial, but for during [Holmes’] seven days of testimony, they were a big portion of what she talked about,” Jarvis told “Start Here.”

“The biggest difference is that he didn’t take the stand to say, ‘I didn’t do this,’ or…raise his own objections to the claims against him.”

Jarvis noted that after the federal government filed its charges against the duo, Balwani’s attorney initially told her, in 2018, this was a business failure and they were in it together. Things changed once they faced separate trials and evidence such as texts and e-mails that implicated that Balwani came to light.

“You think about a jury who is supposed to know nothing about any of their backstory, and they’re shown these things like…case pictures of her so much younger than him, supposedly having to rely on him for his expertise,” she said.

“You can imagine where the jury may have found that presentation more sympathetic than Sunny Balwani who had experience,” she said.

Holmes is scheduled to be sentenced in September and Balwani later this year. Both face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison per count.

Holmes’s attorneys have filed an appeal and Balwani’s attorneys are expected to follow suit, according to Jarvis. However, Jarvis said legal scholars and other experts say those appeals are rarely successful.

However, the case will have a broader impact on the business world and how future start-ups present themselves to investors and customers, she said.

“You don’t get to run a successful business on what might happen in the future. You can’t tell investors what might happen in the future. You can’t tell patients that your product might someday be up to snuff when it isn’t,” Jarvis said.

For the full backstory on Balwani, Holmes and Theranos, listen to ABC News’ podcast “The Dropout.”

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(NEW YORK) — Amazon members are already primed to enjoy perks of speedy delivery and now, that can include food from hundreds of thousands of restaurants.

The food delivery service has teamed up with Amazon to offer Prime members a free, one-year Grubhub+ membership.

The new membership for U.S. customers includes unlimited $0 delivery fees from restaurants that participate on Grubhub nationwide, the companies announced in a press release.

“More than half (53%) of adults and nearly two-thirds (64%) of millennials admit that purchasing takeout and delivery food is ‘essential’ to the way they live, but only one-third (38%) of Americans report using third-party delivery companies like Grubhub at least some of the time,” the food delivery service reported.

Jamil Ghani, vice president of Amazon Prime, explained that the new feature for Prime members “is our way of saying ‘thank you.'”

“The value of a Prime membership continues to grow with this offer, and this year is shaping up to be a great time to enjoy the convenience, savings, fun and deliciousness that membership provides,” Ghani added.

Grubhub+ members will also get access to member-only perks and rewards. Members also enjoy a donation match on Grubhub+ orders through Grubhub’s Donate the Change program, which raised more than $25 million in 2021 alone, benefiting more than 20 charitable organizations.

This offer is available to Prime members all year long.

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(NEW YORK) — As recession fears grow, officials on Wall Street and in Washington, D.C., will be watching employment data on Friday to see if aggressive borrowing cost increases from the Federal Reserve have slowed a monthslong stretch of robust U.S. hiring — suggesting economic activity may be quieting down.

The jobs report is expected to show that U.S. employers hired 273,000 workers last month, a marked slowdown in payrolls from the 390,000 jobs added during the month prior, according to a survey from Bloomberg. The survey predicts that the unemployment rate will remain at 3.6%.

The new data arrives at a precarious moment. Across the economy, acute financial distress could grow as the Fed pursues a series of rate hikes that aim to dial back sky-high inflation but risks tipping the economy into a recession. At its most recent meeting, last month, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate 0.75%, its largest rate increase since 1994.

“It’s amazing how head-spinning the predictions of the economy have been,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at The New School for Social Resarch. “Inflation was the top issue before the Fed met last month and now it’s recession,” she added.

Heightening the sense of economic uncertainty, the S&P 500 suffered its worst first-half performance of any year since 1970, falling 20.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell even further over that period, dropping more than 28%.

Economic data released this week presented a mixed picture of the job market. Employers posted 11.3 million job openings in May, a dropoff from the peak of 11.8 million in March but far higher than pre-pandemic levels, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Wednesday. The statistics indicate that demand for workers dipped but remained strong in May.

On the other hand, data released by the Labor Department on Thursday showed that jobless claims stood at 235,000 last week, an increase of 4,000 from the week prior and the highest seen since mid-January. The data suggests that the tight labor market may be loosening, a possible sign of an economic slowdown.

Ghilarducci, the labor economist, cautioned that the persistence of a low unemployment rate in June may not mean that the economy remains in good shape, since the unemployment rate often lags behind overall economic trends.

“The unemployment rate is a note from a different time,” she said.

Still, the White House and the Federal Reserve will be watching closely to see if the data reveals anything about their difficult tight-rope walk of fighting sky-high prices by slowing down demand, while simultaneously avoiding the type of steep slowdown that could cause a recession.

In recent months, strong hiring has turned the monthly jobs report into a recurring indicator of the hot U.S. labor market.

Prior to May, the U.S. enjoyed a streak of 12 straight months in which it added at least 400,000 jobs. Meanwhile, for the past three months of jobs data — from March to May — the unemployment rate has stood at 3.6%, a tick above the 3.5% unemployment rate that the U.S. saw in February 2020.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. saw stronger than expected job growth in June, as the economy added 372,000 jobs and the unemployment rate remained at 3.6%, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.

The data shows moderately lower but robust job growth, despite aggressive borrowing cost increases from the Federal Reserve.

The leisure and hospitality industry continued to show strong growth, adding 67,000 jobs, though a slight dip from the positions added over the month prior. Jobs were also added in health care and professional and business services.

The labor force participation rate, a measure of working-age Americans who hold jobs or are actively looking for one, inched down to 62.2% in June, suggesting that workers still remain on the sidelines. That figure stands 1.2 percentage points below pre-pandemic levels seen in February 2020.

Wage increases — a key metric for observers of inflation focused on consumer demand — rose 0.3% over last month and 5.1% over the past year. Those measures are largely unchanged from the report released a month prior.

The new data arrives at a precarious moment. Across the economy, acute financial distress could grow as the Fed pursues a series of rate hikes that aim to dial back sky-high inflation but risks tipping the economy into a recession. At its most recent meeting, last month, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate 0.75%, its largest rate increase since 1994.

“It’s amazing how head-spinning the predictions of the economy have been,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at The New School for Social Resarch. “Inflation was the top issue before the Fed met last month and now it’s recession,” she added.

Heightening the sense of economic uncertainty, the S&P 500 suffered its worst first-half performance of any year since 1970, falling 20.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell even further over that period, dropping more than 28%.

Economic data released this week presented a mixed picture of the job market. Employers posted 11.3 million job openings in May, a dropoff from the peak of 11.8 million in March but far higher than pre-pandemic levels, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Wednesday. The statistics indicate that demand for workers dipped but remained strong in May.

On the other hand, data released by the Labor Department on Thursday showed that jobless claims stood at 235,000 last week, an increase of 4,000 from the week prior and the highest seen since mid-January. The data suggests that the tight labor market may be loosening, a possible sign of an economic slowdown.

Ghilarducci, the labor economist, cautioned that the persistence of a low unemployment rate in June may not mean that the economy remains in good shape, since the unemployment rate often lags behind overall economic trends.

“The unemployment rate is a note from a different time,” she said.

Still, the White House and the Federal Reserve are watching closely to see if jobs data reveals anything about their difficult tight-rope walk of fighting sky-high prices by slowing down demand, while simultaneously avoiding the type of steep slowdown that could cause a recession.

In recent months, strong hiring had turned the monthly jobs report into a recurring indicator of the hot U.S. labor market.

Prior to May, the U.S. enjoyed a streak of 12 straight months in which it added at least 400,000 jobs. Meanwhile, for the past three months of jobs data — from March to May — the unemployment rate has stood at 3.6%, a tick above the 3.5% unemployment rate that the U.S. saw in February 2020.

On Friday, April and May numbers were revised to show 74,000 fewer jobs added in those months.

ABC News’ Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a slew of major U.S. companies said they will cover travel costs for employees who cannot access an abortion where they live.

High-profile brands like Apple, Target, Starbucks, Amazon and Disney, ABC News’ parent company, are among those that vowed to help employees afford such travel, as 26 states are “certain or likely” to ban abortion in the aftermath of the court ruling, the Guttmacher Institute predicted in October. In several states, abortion bans have already taken hold.

But the new policies position companies as a key bulwark for abortion rights in states banning the procedure, raising concerns over the privacy of employees who may share intimate details of their personal lives in order to access the subsidy for travel costs. Fear of retribution or discrimination based on the desire to access the employee benefit could dissuade women from using it, experts told ABC News.

Assessing such privacy concerns is difficult in the early days of these policies, when companies are still figuring out exactly what implementation will require and the state-by-state legal environment remains in flux, the experts said. They added that federal law offers robust, albeit incomplete protection for the confidentiality of medical information, urging companies to administer the plan through a health insurer rather than deliver the benefit directly.

“Women should not assume with these policies that their privacy is absolutely 100% guaranteed,” said Wendy Parmet, a professor of health law at Northwestern University. “On the other hand, there are protections.”

“We risk the situation in which the fear itself becomes a more formidable barrier to access to needed care than the actual laws,” she added.

A central question for the new policies covering travel for abortion procedures hinges on whether companies administer the subsidy through an insurer or do it themselves, experts said.

If the benefit is provided through an insurer, then employees will retain the strong privacy protections that they receive whenever pursuing a medical procedure or health benefit through employer-provided health insurance, said Sharona Hoffman, a health law professor at Case Western Reserve University. In such cases, HIPAA prevents the release of medical information about a patient, she added.

If a company provides the benefit directly, then those same privacy protections will not apply. “HIPAA doesn’t apply to employers — there’s no HIPAA privacy coverage,” Hoffman said.

She noted that federal law does offer some confidentiality protections for sensitive medical information held by an employer through the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“If they learn somebody has HIV or cancer, they can’t disclose that to anyone else, unless they have to disclose it to a supervisor who has to provide accommodations to personnel,” she said, noting that it’s unclear how such protections will apply in the case of women seeking to use a company’s coverage for abortion-related travel.

Experts also emphasized the uncertain implications of potential legislation that may aim to prevent people from traveling to other states for an abortion. If such a law took effect and empowered law enforcement to subpoena information from companies or insurers that administer the travel subsidy, then they could be forced to turn over information.

“There’s a HIPAA exception for law enforcement,” said Hoffman, the health law professor at Case Western Reserve University. “Even health care providers have to respond to requests from law enforcement.”

Companies must establish guidelines for how they will respond to potential legal attacks on their policies, said Sonja Spoo, the director of reproductive rights campaigns at the feminist advocacy group UltraViolet.

“If you’re going to provide these benefits to workers, you need to make sure you have a plan in place to protect them,” she said. “Make sure employees are safe from attempts by whoever is in power to see information and weaponize it.”

ABC News posed questions about privacy concerns to 20 top companies that have announced policies that cover travel for employees who cannot access abortion nearby. Eight companies responded, of which seven provided a general comment about their policies but did not answer questions about privacy protections.

One company, Yelp, responded directly to questions from ABC News about privacy concerns regarding its policy.

“​​The privacy and safety of our employees were critical to how we would introduce this benefit, which is administered through our health insurance provider, ensuring confidentiality,” a Yelp spokesperson told ABC News. “Yelp will never receive any information on who incurred a claim and/or received reimbursement.”

Several companies responded to privacy questions about their policies covering employee travel with general statements on the new policies, including Bank of America, Lyft, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Meta, the parent company of Facebook.

“We intend to offer travel expense reimbursements, to the extent permitted by law, for employees who will need them to access out-of-state health care and reproductive services,” a Meta spokesperson told ABC News. “We are in the process of assessing how best to do so given the legal complexities involved.”

As the political and legal terrain shifts, companies will need to constantly adapt to ensure employee information remains private, Kirsten Vignec, an employment attorney at the law firm Hill Ward Henderson, told ABC News.

“​​This is the beginning — not the end — of the transition as a result of the change in precedent,” she said.

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(NEW YORK) — A jury has convicted former Theranos president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani of defrauding investors and patients in connection with his multi-billion-dollar blood-testing startup.

Balwani, on Thursday, was found guilty on all 12 counts of fraud, for a scheme prosecutors alleged and have now proved he orchestrated alongside his former romantic partner and Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes.

Balwani faced 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Holmes, who faced the same charges as Balwani, was convicted on four counts of fraud in January and awaits sentencing in September.

While Holmes was only convicted on counts related to investors, a jury found Balwani also defrauded patients.

The feds originally charged Balwani and Holmes together. But their trials were later severed after Holmes revealed she may testify to abuse at the hands of Balwani.

Prosecutors said Balwani and Holmes, who touted her startup’s technology as capable of accurately and reliably running any blood test, fraudulently raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors.

Money poured in, but the miniature blood-testing device, dubbed the “Edison,” could never run more than 12 tests, government attorneys said.

Balwani joined the company in 2009, guaranteeing a $10 million loan and quickly rising to the post of president and COO of Theranos. While his attorneys sought to distinguish his position in the company from the CEO, Holmes, prosecutors say he played an equal role in the fraud.

“I am responsible for everything at Theranos. All have been my decisions too,” read a text message from Balwani to Holmes in July 2015, which Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Schenk presented to the jury in his final argument.

“Of course [Balwani] had a hand in making the decisions at Theranos,” defense attorney Jeff Coopersmith said during his closing argument.

But, Coopersmith, said in meetings with investors and others, “everyone was listening to Elizabeth Holmes.” The company was her vision, he added, and Balwani had bought in.

“Mr. Balwani is not a victim. He’s a perpetrator of the fraud,” the prosecutor, Schenk, said to wrap up his remarks.

Wayne Kaatz, a juror on the Holmes case, told ABC News in an exclusive interview earlier this year that his group of 12 jurors convicted Holmes, in part, because “everything went through her,” he said. “She had final approval.”

He also revealed his team found Holmes’ testimony largely not credible. Balwani, in his trial, did not take the stand.

Wayne Kaatz, a juror on the Holmes case, told ABC News in an exclusive interview earlier this year that his group of 12 jurors convicted Holmes, in part, because “everything went through her,” he said. “She had final approval.”

He also revealed his team found Holmes’ testimony largely not credible. Balwani, in his trial, did not take the stand.

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(NEW YORK) — After a gunman killed seven people and wounded dozens more at an Independence Day parade outside Chicago on Monday, thousands turned to the online platform GoFundMe to donate money to the victims — the latest example of the public gathering online to fundraise after a tragedy.

While websites like GoFundMe have made such philanthropy increasingly easy, there can be risks.

Highland Park, Illinois, Mayor Nancy Rotering warned the community about potential fundraising scams in a Tuesday morning news conference. By then GoFundMe had already established a specialized hub with links to fundraisers it said it had verified.

Donors had raised millions across 11 different pages as of Wednesday, the website showed. Comments poured in offering well-wishes; some hoped for more gun reform. At least one donor said they were sending care from as far away as Australia.

“As a parent trying to enjoy the little things in life with my own kids, I am deeply saddened that this is where we are now in our world, having to fear a street parade. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of you,” said a comment from a user named Joanna Castello.

One fund will support the family of a couple killed in the shooting. Irina and Kevin McCarthy’s 2-year-old son, Aiden, was found alone in the aftermath. He was later reunited with his grandparents, according to a Highland Park city manager.

As of Thursday morning, the fundraiser for the slain couple had drawn almost $3 million, more than six times its initial goal of $500,000 — with more than 50,000 individual donations.

Many donors directly addressed the couple’s orphaned son in their messages.

One GoFundMe donor identified as Lauren Cohen wrote: “Aiden, I am so sorry for your unimaginable and tragic loss. We are all looking out for you and are heartbroken for you, your family and all of the victims of this tragedy. Sending love.”

The parade shooting “hub” is not the first instance when GoFundMe has been used in the wake of a mass shooting.

Following the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school massacre in May and disasters including West Coast wildfires and the 2021 Surfside Condo collapse in Florida, GoFundMe has continued to establish so-called “crisis hubs,” according to a Medium post the company shared last year.

When news reports of a crisis arise, GoFundMe said it directs a team that monitors related fundraisers, according to the post. The company works with newsrooms, government officials and law enforcement during the verification process.

Some funds are held by the platform until payment information is confirmed — even if the fundraiser is verified, the Medium post shows.

GoFundMe does not always deem unverified fundraisers fraudulent. They can still accumulate donations, according to the post. But organizers cannot withdraw funds from pages that have not been vetted.

A GoFundMe spokesperson told ABC News Wednesday that the platform requires details such as government ID, banking information and addresses when verifying pages. GoFundMe guarantees a full donation refund in cases of fraud, the spokesperson said.

Donors can also directly report pages to GoFundMe for investigation and contact organizers with questions on the site if they want to know more before donating, the spokesperson said.

Kevin Scally, chief relationship officer for the nonprofit evaluator Charity Navigator, told ABC News that fraudulent activity often takes place outside platforms like GoFundMe. Scally said scammers are more likely to target people through look-alike fake webpages and direct, personal appeals.

Scally said GoFundMe has made great strides in fraud protection, citing the policy of validating users before allowing them to withdraw funds. Still, he urged prospective donors to do their research.

“It’s typically best to do some due diligence and make sure that, if you are supporting an organization or you’re supporting a personal fundraiser, you’re doing that through a verified, valid means,” he said.

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(NEW YORK) — Stock market woes will persist into the second half of the year but signs of hope will emerge for beleaguered investors, experts told ABC News of their predictions.

The stock market took a historic plunge over the first half of the year, and many of the same economic threats still loom as inflation remains sky-high and the Federal Reserve pursues aggressive moves to tame price hikes by raising borrowing costs. That means volatility will continue to hammer markets in the coming months, experts told ABC News.

But the major indexes will likely end 2022 higher than they stand now, as rock-bottom share prices begin to promise a buy-low opportunity that outweighs the risk of further decline, the experts said. As investors eventually jump off the sidelines, the market will stabilize and begin to recover, they predicted.

Over the first six months of the year, the S&P 500 — a popular index to which many 401(k) accounts are pegged — plummeted 20.6%, marking its worst first-half performance of any year since 1970. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell even further, dropping more than 28% over the same period; the Dow Jones Industrial average dropped more than 14%.

Persistent threats to the market include inflation, ongoing interest rate hikes, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and a potential recession. In the short term, these looming dangers will put downward pressure on the stock market, since market performance depends on the financial outlook of companies across the economy, experts said.

Ultimately, investors are deciding whether to buy or sell based on the likelihood that a given business will succeed over the coming months and years, Howard Silverblatt, a senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices, told ABC News.

“It all comes down to earnings,” Silverblatt said. “We’re buying a stock based on how much we think the company is going to make.”

Economic headwinds will make it challenging for companies to show investors a path to success, experts told ABC News.

For instance, in order to tame an inflation rate last seen more than four decades ago, the Federal Reserve has undertaken an aggressive effort to raise borrowing costs, which in theory should slow the economy, slash demand, and reduce prices. But the approach will likely weigh on markets, as investors anticipate poor business performance amid the economic slowdown, Silverblatt said.

“In order to stop inflation, the Fed has got to create pain,” he said. “Nobody likes pain. If I’m taking a splinter out of my finger, I’m still yelling and screaming as I’m doing it.”

At its most recent meeting, last month, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate 0.75%, its largest rate increase since 1994. The Federal Reserve has said it expects to continue raising interest rates in response to elevated inflation.

Experts also cited the threat posed by a potential recession, which many observers define through the shorthand metric of two consecutive quarters of decline in a nation’s inflation-adjusted gross domestic product, or GDP. A country’s GDP is the total value of goods and services that it produces.

If the U.S. were to enter a recession, it would likely further dampen the hopes of businesses and consumers alike, which could slow economic activity and batter markets, experts said.

“The market is suspect of the prospects for earnings and growth,” Harvey said.

But the market will reach a point at which it has dropped far enough that share prices present investors with a purchase that looks more like a buy-low opportunity than a risk of further losses, the experts said. At that point, the market will stabilize and begin to recover as traders jump back into stocks, they added.

Market analysts expect the stock market to reach this point of bottoming out sometime before 2023. Past recoveries suggest market performance can suddenly flip, said Sam Stovall, the chief market strategist at research firm CFRA.

“To know how frequently these declines occur — but then again, how quickly the market gets back to break even and beyond — it will remind investors they are better off preparing a shopping list,” Stovall said. “Think more about buying than bailing.”

But investors should take into account their level of financial cushion, and thus their ability to withstand losses in the short term, said Silverblatt, the analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

“Even if you think your stock is the best stock in the world — the new Apple or Amazon — in two years,” he said. “If you can’t live through it because you can’t take the loss, you can’t play it.”

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