[atom058]

It's due to the higher interest rates

A higher risk-free rate of return from e.g. Government bonds entails higher 'required rate of return' for all other investments in the economy

Suddenly, all companies need to increase their profits by 3-5 percentage points, while their costs are increasing across the board. So they need to increase sales (hard/expensive), reduce costs (might not be possible), or raise prices ('easy' to do, but customers might not accept it)