Pivot hopes are back and stocks rally on stronger than expected jobs report. (Go figure!)
Economists were expecting a light October jobs report this morning with projections from economists surveyed by Bloomberg at 195,000. Instead, the Labor Department reported that the economy added 261,000 jobs in October. (And revised the September report up to 315,000...
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Federal Reserve, Mind the Gap!
Today I posted my two-hundredth YouTube video: Federal Reserve: Mind the Gap! Today is Ground Hog Day for the Federal Reserve. The U.S. central bank will announce whether or not it sees its shadow. It’s predicted to announce a 75 basis point increase in interest...
Not what the market wanted to hear from the Fed today
At first investors and traders thought they heard the Federal Reserve signal that the central bank was thinking about a pivot to a policy of cutting interest rates. And stocks rallied. But then Fed chair Jerome Powell “clarified” the Fed’s thinking...
Stocks soar, bonds fall on worse than expected CPI inflation news
Headline Consumer Price Index inflation rose at an 8.2% annual rate in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning. Month-to-month inflation rose by 0.4% on a seasonally adjusted basis. The month-to-month increase was just 0.1% in August. Core...
Dollar is back on the march; Treasuries slide again
The U.S. dollar was up hard today, October 6. The Invesco DB U.S. Dollar Bullish Fund ETF (UUP) rose 1.00%. The Dollar Spot Index (DXY) gained 0.90% And Treasury yields resumed the upward move that has erased much of the gain in bond prices of the last week. The yield...
Please Watch My YouTube Video: Trend of the Week Housing Prices Fall, Finally
My one-hundred-and-ninety-first YouTube video: “Trend of the Week Housing Prices Fall, Finally” went up today. This week’s Trend of the Week is “Housing Prices Fall, Finally.” We’ve recently seen a big increase in mortgage rates,...
Signs of the Next Bear Market Rally Story Yesterday–Will It Take Root?
One of the oddest things about yesterday’s reaction to news from the Federal Reserve of a 75 basis point increase in interest rates was that the market initially rallied. Yesterday, September 21, from 3801 at 10:25 a.m.New York time, the Standard &...
Fed raises interest rates by another 75 basis points as expected; Dot Plot signals rate increases for well into 2023
At today’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the U.S. central bank raised interest rates by 75 basis points for a third straight meeting. That took the Fed’s short-term benchmark rate to a range of 3% to 3.25%. This move was widely expected...
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: The Fed’s Real Inflation Problem
My one-hundred-and-seventy-fifth YouTube video: “The Fed’s Real Inflation Problem” went up today. The CPI numbers came out and they were disappointing with inflation running at an 8.3% annual rate in August. But the inflation problem is worst than...
CPI headline inflation likely to dip in Tuesday report–market will cheer; Fed will shrug
All attention on Tuesday morning’s report of Consumer Price Index inflation for August. It is likely to drive stocks higher in a continuation of Friday’s advance. But the report will not change the Federal Reserve’s mind about increasing interest...
CME FedWatch odds of 75 basis points at September 21 meeting rise to 90%–after that the picture gets murky.
According to the CME Fed Watch Tool, which calculates the odds of a Fed move in interest rates by looking at prices in the Fed Funds Futures market, the odds of a 75 basis point interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve at its September 21 meeting have climbed to...
The Fed keeps pointing at 4% interest rates–or higher
Yesterday Richmond Federal Reserve President Thomas Barkin told The Financial Times that interest rates must stay high until inflation improves. 4% interest rates wouldn’t surprise him, he said. And today Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard said at the...
The Wall Street consensus is slowly shifting
The stock market still hasn’t completely accepted the likelihood of a recession forced by the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases. And there’s still optimism about interest rate cuts in the second half of 2023. But I sense that the market...
Powell says Fed committed to raising interest rates, and keeping them high, until inflation is under control
Well, that was short and direct. Especially for the Federal Reserve. In a speech of less than 10 minutes Fed chair Jerome Powell warned financial markets to expect that the central bank will keep raising interest rates and will then leave them at higher levels for...
Fed presidents sing higher interest rates song ahead of Powell’s speech on Friday
This week Fed presidents have set the table for Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell’s Friday morning speech at the Jackson Hole central bankers’ conference. But it’s not clear that the financial markets are eating off the same menu. (I bought a box...
I think there’s a longer term trend (more than a day and maybe even beyond next week) in today’s big selling
The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 1.29% at the close today, August 19. The NASDAQ Composite dropped 2.01%. The small-cap Russell 2000 lost 2.17%. The drop in the S&P was the biggest daily decline since June and it took that index to its first weekly loss...
Fed members push back on market’s inflation has peaked rally
It didn’t take long. The pixels were barely dry on yesterday’s CPI inflation report–headline inflation fell to a year-over-year rate of 8.5% in July from 9.1% in June–before members of the Federal Reserve warned that the stock market rally on...
CPI headline inflation falls more than expected; core inflation remains steady
The annual rate of inflation as measured by the headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) dipped in July to 8.5%. That was down from June’s annual rate of 9.1%. Economists had expected the inflation rate to drop to 8.7% However, the news wasn’t as positive on...
Watch my new YouTube video: The Fed Talks but the Market’s Not Listening
My one-hundred-and-sixty-fifth YouTube video “Trend of the Week The Fed Talks but the Market’s Not Listening” went up today. The market has strongly rallied in the last month, in good part on the optimistic belief in a “soft landing” from...
Surprise! Economy added 528,000 jobs in July–what’s it all mean (especially for the Fed)?
The U.S. economy added 528,000 jobs in July. The increase crushed all estimates. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg were looking for about half that gain. The Labor Department also revised June job gains upward to 398,000. The unemployment rate dipped to 3.5%, matching...
Another crack in the jobs market
Job openings in the United States fell in June to a nine-month low. The number of available positions decreased to 10.7 million in the month from an upwardly revised 11.3 million in May, the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed...
Inflation, wage numbers today are bad news for “soft landing” believers
Inflation, measured by the Federal Reserve’s preferred Personal Consumption Expenditures index climbed 6.8% in the twelve months that ended in June. That’s the fastest rate of growth since 1982. Core PCE inflation (that is after removing food and energy...
This looks like the Bear Market rally I’ve been waiting for
After looking like it was over earlier in the week with a significant pull back on Tuesday, July 26, stocks have rallied in the last two days, gaining 3.85% by the Thursday, July 28 close from that Tuesday low. And right now all the ducks are lined up in a row for a...
Fed raises interest rates by 75 basis points and stocks soar–how come?
This afternoon the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points to a range of 2.25% to 2.50%. It was the second straight 75 basis don’t increase and the fourth increase in interest rates this year. Stocks soared. The Standard &...
A very busy week ahead–Ukraine and commodities, tech stock earnings, and, of course, the Fed on interest rates
What a week ahead. I’d expect speculation about what the Federal Reserve will say on Wednesday to dominate a very lengthy slate of market news. No real suspense about whether or not the Fed will raise rates at its July 27 meeting. The central bank has made it...
Initial claims for unemployment edge upwards ahead of surge in announced layoffs
Initial claims for unemployment totaled 251,000 for the week ended July 16, up 7,000 from the week before, the Labor Department reported today, July 21. Economists were looking for 240,000 initial claims. That was the highest weekly number since November 13, 2021 The...
CPI headline inflation up at 9.1% annual rate in June
It’s not the kind of historical comparison you want to hear. Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI rose at a 9.1% annual rate in June. That was the highest annual rate since November 1981. (Just as the Volcker Fed was raising interest rates to...
Why “When will the recession arrive? isn’t the most important question right now
If the recession isn’t here already, it’s only because of a technicality. In the first-quarter U.S. GDP contracted at a 1.6% annualized rate. The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow tracker forwards that in the second-quarter GDP will contract at a 2.1%...
Fed’s June minutes increase odds of a 75 basis point increase at July 27 meeting
In my opinion, this was the most important statement in the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s June meeting released today: Fed officials “recognized that policy firming could slow the pace of economic growth for a time, but they saw the return of inflation to...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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