‘Soft landing’ hope drives a stellar stock-market rally. Why U.S. economy is still not out of the woods.

A rally in the U.S. stock and bond markets in the past week defied the bears and fueled hopes for more gains to come by year-end and in 2024 as Wall Street bought into the idea that the economy will pull off a “soft landing” after a run of interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.