187 ordspråk av Ethan Harris
Ethan Harris
Fed officials ... likely anticipated some fallout in fixed income markets, ... We believe ... that Fed officials wanted to signal a greater probability of tightening in 2004 than had been priced into markets.
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Firms have cut back on their capital spending budgets to the point where some of them are not even replacing worn-out equipment. It's been quite a dramatic pullback, and in some sense there's some pent-up demand out there for capital equipment.
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For the Fed to hike rates now would be the equivalent of a doctor prematurely declaring a patient at full health, discharging them from the hospital and then forcing them to run a mile.
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From the market perspective, there's a big difference [between 6 percent and 5.8 percent unemployment], especially since there's a lot of talk out there that maybe a recovery is at hand.
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Housing prices tend to turn very slowly, and that delays whatever impact they might have on the economy.
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I don't think this should alter anybody's views about the Fed in a major way.
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I think that (high inflation readings) would be almost the last straw to convince the Fed.
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I think the economy is already in the process of slowing to a more moderate pace. Oil has both an immediate impact on spending and lagging impacts. Even though oil has stabilized in recent weeks, we still have to play out effects. We're still waiting for the shock value of the winter heating bills hitting people.
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I think we know corporate profit growth can't stay at the rate we've seen in recent quarters. They (employers) have been squeezing the work force pretty aggressively, squeezing productivity out of workers and holding the line on wages. It's a matter of how much corporate profits slow down.
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I think what people will see is that commentary from Fed officials will sound almost identical to their commentary prior to this meeting. Nothing's really changed at the Fed.
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I'm not sure I believe the Labor Department. On Friday, there must have been a below-normal number of people applying for benefits.
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If job growth is just 50,000 a month, you can be sure that the unemployment rate is going to rise at some point in the coming months.
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If the Fed isn't happy, the market isn't happy.
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If we have an economy that functions O.K., with a little help from the Fed, in that case gridlock is quite good for the market,
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If we have an economy that functions O.K., with a little help from the Fed, in that case gridlock is quite good for the market.
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