Activities are beginning to pick up. Manufacturing has been the weakest part of the economy. The rest of the economy may be even stronger. |
All in all, a much more bond-friendly, stock market-hostile report than expected. |
Economists were expecting that the Fed would either remove the warning about asymmetric risks toward inflation or judgment that further tightening might be necessary. Of course, the Fed did neither. |
Excluding oil, prices are still contained. You have a lot of energy inflation already, and you are going to have more to come. You have a lot refined products overseas. It's more expensive to refine overseas. We are going to see a pop next month. |
Fourth quarter consumer spending is coming in a lot lower. It looks like it's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 percent -- that is, unless December turns out to be a blockbuster month. |
He thinks the [Fed] is right to remain focused on the risk of falling inflation. |
Home sales have remained surprisingly strong despite higher interest rates. |
Housing is as strong as ever, and the mortgage business is as good as ever. |
If yields stay where they are, it's difficult to imagine how it could not have some economic impact. |
In today's market, everyone is a Fed-watcher. Hopefully we will not lose any transparency and will lose some of the volatility. |
It [this report] is less inflationary than what we saw earlier this year. Bottom line, things are definitely slowing down a bit. |
It is going to make economists slightly revise down first-quarter GDP, which they already did with the weaker consumer spending number. |
It's a big surprise. There has been plenty of anecdotal evidence of regional weakness, but none of the national numbers have shown weakness. |
It's an ugly number -- you have a decline in March, you have a downward revision to the prior month, |
It's nice to know that the Fed is taking (exotic home loans) seriously, |