The consensus is now quickly forming, like it did in July, that the Fed is going to move (rates), and move on September 24. But I'll be a maverick and say they won't move. |
The news doesn't come much better than this. |
The problem with the Greenspan Fed is that it has been a 'make it up as you go along' Fed. There is no philosophy with Greenspan. He changes his mind about all of this stuff. |
The volatility that we've had in the stock market is higher than we've been accustomed to over the past several months. We've now finally broken into the range where the moves are greater than 1 percent, but as long as they're not 2 percent or 3 percent, we're not in that range where you would start to call them extraordinary. |
They've really lost their minds [at the Fed] if they really think that's the kind of thing that's going to do anything other than collapse the economy. |
This week, the question is: Do we need a safe haven anymore, is the worst behind us? |
We're seeing a bubble bursting in the bond market. It was way overdone; there was really no justification for bonds being at [such a low] yield. |
We've got economic strength that is much stronger than most people had expected. |
What we can do is take the core rate of PPI and combine it with last week's 5 cent-an-hour jump in average hourly wages and say that inflation looks like it is a concern, maybe not a problem yet, but a concern. And the Federal Reserve was justified in raising rates and may be justified in raising rates again in the May or July meeting. |
While the (producer-price) number is positive, one number cannot offset four months of strong numbers. If we get more weak numbers, we could push the idea of a Fed tightening away, but this one number won't do it. I think that the idea that the Fed is going to move is still very much on the table. |
While the PPI number is positive, one number cannot offset four months of strong numbers. If we get more weak numbers ... we could push the idea of a Fed tightening away, but this one number won't do it. I think that the idea that the Fed is going to move is still very much on the table. |
While the PPI number is positive, one number cannot offset four months of strong numbers. If we get more weak numbers, we could push the idea of a Fed tightening away, but this one number won't do it. I think that the idea that the Fed is going to move is still very much on the table. |