Fed Hike Threat Has Wall Street Braced for the Worst

A long lull in the stock market looks set to end. It’s been nearly a year since the S&P 500 hit its all-time high. Headwinds are accumulating fast: uneven U.S. economic growth, evidence of caution by U.S. consumers, falling global trade volumes, energy sector defaults, an increasingly contentious U.S. presidential contest, credit woes in China, falling corporate profitability and, most importantly, indications that the Federal Reserve — spurred on by steady job growth and rebound