From the category archives:
Earlier this morning, I published a piece predicting that the Fed under “Helicopter” Ben Bernanke won’t tighten rates until the cows come home.Today’s jobs report only underscores my certainty in this matter.
The currency and bond markets are getting the message loud and clear, with breakouts, breakdowns, and crazy activity visible all over the place. A [...]
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We’re getting some more U.S. economic data and the tone overall is okay. Retail sales dropped 1.5% in September as the Cash for Clunkers program expired (Auto sales plunged 10.4% on the month). But that was actually better than the -2.1% reading that was expected. If you take out autos and gas, sales were actually [...]
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We just got a trifecta of economic reports and they all suggest the economy is recovering (and that the inflation picture is somewhat less benign). To wit:
* Retail sales surged 2.7% in August. That was much stronger than the 1.9% gain that was expected and the biggest rise in three years. But even if you [...]
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The import price index came in hot in August, up 2% against expectations for a rise of 1% and a decline of 0.7% in July. The ex-fuels reading, which excludes the impact of oil and gas prices, was up 0.4%. Food and beverage costs were up 1.7%, industrial supply prices were up 6.1%, while both [...]
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The Federal Open Market Committee left its interest rate target unchanged at 0% to 0.25%. Also, the Fed left its targets for purchases of Treasury debt, GSE debt, and mortgage backed securities unchanged. The complete statement is as follows:
“Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in April suggests that the pace of economic [...]
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Lo and behold, it’s another free-fall in the dollar in the wake of the “Geithner Goes To China to Beg for Creditor Mercy” trip. DXY now down 81 bps to 78.34, the low of they day. Gold up $6 and change. Crude oil back to positive after trading down most of the day. And the [...]
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The Consumer Price Index followed up this morning on yesterday’s Producer Price Index. The message: Deflation is here. Prices dropped 0.4% year-over-year in the month of March. That was the single biggest decline going all the way back to August 1955. The “core” CPI is still up 1.8% on the year, but even that has [...]
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The Fed left the funds rate unchanged at today’s policy meeting. Here is the post-meeting statement …
“The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to keep its target for the federal funds rate at 2 percent.
“Strains in financial markets have increased significantly and labor markets have weakened further. Economic growthappears to have slowed recently, partly reflecting [...]
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I’m not going to sugarcoat this morning’s economic data. It stunk to high heaven. A few details:
- Q2 2008 Gross Domestic Product grew just 1.9%, below the average forecast for a 2.3% rise. Q1 2008 growth was reviseddown slightly to 0.9% from 1%. Moreover, Q4 2007 GDP was slashed to NEGATIVE 0.2% from positive 0.6%
- [...]
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Forgive me if this post meanders a bit — there’s a lot of stuff that I feel like commenting on …
First, the newly-hawkish Federal Reserve may be having second thoughts, according to Robert Novak
at the Washington Post. From a column
that’s up on the Post’s website today …
“Bernanke, according to sources, disagrees more with the European [...]
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