Fed

Fed Not Even Thinking About Thinking About Cutting Rates

Nov 21, 2023 2 min read paid

That's the basic message of the FOMC's minutes released today. The word "restrictive" was mentioned seven times mostly in the following context: "In discussing the policy outlook, participants continued to judge that it was critical that the stance of monetary policy be kept sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to the Committee’s 2 percent objective over time." The core PCED was up

Ed Yardeni

Taking A Well-Deserved Break

Nov 15, 2023 2 min read paid

Today was a day of rest in the bond and stock markets. They didn't do much. Perhaps the markets will consolidate their gains since the start of the month through the end of Thanksgiving week. Then we expect that the stock market's Santa Claus rally will resume through the end of the year. In our opinion, the consensus outlook has turned much less pessimistic so far

Ed Yardeni

Another Happy Day For Bond & Stock Investors

Nov 14, 2023 2 min read paid

As inflation continues to descend, bond and stock prices are ascending. Today's lower-than-expected CPI inflation report confirms that inflation is continuing to moderate. So the 10-year Treasury bond yield fell to 4.44%, boosting the valuation multiples of stocks. The S&P 500 is now up 9.2% above its recent correction low on October 27 (chart). Our yearend target of 4600 for the index could be

Ed Yardeni

Powell Is Still Calling The Shots

Nov 9, 2023 2 min read paid

The bid-to-cover ratio is the dollar value of bids compared with the dollar value of debt offered. Falling bid-to-cover ratios indicate less robust interest from investors. Yields climbed today after a weak auction of $24 billion in 30-year Treasuries with demand for the debt at 2.24 times the bonds on sale (chart). That helped to push stock prices lower today, snapping the longest winning streaks for the Nasdaq and

Ed Yardeni

SLOOS Shows Looser Credit Conditions

Nov 6, 2023 1 min read

The Fed may not be as almighty as Fed officials believe. The FOMC has raised the federal funds rate aggressively by 525bps since March 2022. Their goal was to slow economic growth to subdue inflation. Yet the economy grew rapidly during Q3 and the unemployment rate has remained below 4.0% since February 2022. Nevertheless, inflation has moderated significantly since last summer (chart). Inflation seems to be to be mostly

Ed Yardeni

Powell Remains Hawkish

Oct 19, 2023 2 min read

Fed Chair Jerome Powell should be very concerned about the rapid disinversion of the yield curve since early July as the bond yield soared from around 4.00% to nearly 5.00% today. If he is, he didn't show it during his interview today. Instead, he noted that the economy remains strong and monetary policy might have to be tightened some more: "We are attentive to recent

Ed Yardeni

Is Inflation Persistent, Sticky, or Transitory?

Oct 12, 2023 2 min read paid

In our opinion, price inflation is turning out to be transitory after all. Wage inflation is more persistent, but moderating. Rent inflation is stickier, but also moderating. Today's CPI report for September mostly confirms our assessment. Fed officials will undoubtedly stress that at 3.7% y/y and 4.1%, the headline and core CPI inflation rates remain too high above their 2.0% inflation target. However, some

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: October 2 - 6

Sep 30, 2023 2 min read paid

The first week of the month is usually jampacked with employment indicator releases. On balance, we expect they will show that the labor market remains relatively strong. August's JOLTS report (Tue) could show that job openings fell but remained high as evidenced by the "jobs plentiful" series in the consumer confidence survey (chart). The jobs plentiful series also suggests less upward pressure on wages, as measured

Ed Yardeni

Talking Heads Talk Stocks Down

Sep 26, 2023 2 min read paid

We were surprised that stock prices didn't drop yesterday along with bond prices. So we aren't surprised to see stock prices down today. Contributing to the selloff was JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who warned interest rates may need to rise further to subdue inflation. In an interview with The Times of India, he said that the Fed might have to raise the federal funds rate

Ed Yardeni

FOMC's Message: High For Longer

Sep 20, 2023 2 min read paid

The FOMC’s latest Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) released today shows that the median forecast of the federal funds rate (FFR) for 2023 is 5.6%, unchanged from June’s SEP (table). The 2024 forecast was raised to 5.1% from 4.6%. As we expected, the FOMC’s message is that the FFR might be lowered next year by 50bps rather than 100bps. The latest SEP shows headline

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: September 18-22

Sep 16, 2023 2 min read paid

The Dot Plot thickens! Other than another FOMC meeting, it's a slow week ahead for economic indicators. The committee's statement is widely expected to pass on another rate hike, but suggest that there could be another one at the November meeting. All eyes will be on the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP), which is updated quarterly and includes the "Dot Plot," which shows the

Ed Yardeni

Consumers Fretting More About Credit & Less About Inflation

Sep 11, 2023 2 min read paid

Tech stocks seem to go up whenever the bond yield stops doing so. Leading tech stocks higher today was Tesla, which is actually in the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary sector. Morgan Stanley issued a very bullish report on the auto company's new "Dojo" supercomputer. It suggests that Tesla may also be a play on AI. Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury bond yield remained below 4.

Ed Yardeni

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