What will the Fed do about interest rates on Wednesday and how will financial markets react?
The Federal Reserve will meet on Wednesday, March 22, to set interest rates. There are three things to watch from that meeting. First, whether the Fed will raise interest rates or not and by 25 basis points, 50 basis points, or not at all. Second, we will get the...
ECB sticks to inflation fighting with surprise 50 basis point interest rate increase today
The European Central Bank raised its benchmark short-term interest rate by another 50 basis points today. The bank said that the European banking system has strong capital and liquidity positions in spite of problems at Credit Suisse that led that bank to borrow $54...
Please Watch My New YouTube video: The Fed’s Impending Disaster
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-forty-eighth YouTube video: The Fed’s Impending Disaster Want to grow your portfolio and protect it too? In the toughest investing market in 40 years? Grab my eBook, Your Best Investing Strategy for the Next 5 Years: Free...
CPI inflation numbers put Fed between a rock and a hard place next week
February core inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index, climbed from January at a faster month-to-month pace, according to this morning’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Core inflation, which excludes theoretically more volatile food and...
Don’t forget tomorrow’s CPI inflation report for February
Tomorrow’s CPI inflation report for February will show whether the Federal Reserve faces a very difficult task in bringing down inflation without crashing the economy (and/or the banking system) or whether the job is simply impossible. Right now economists are...
What does the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank mean for your portfolio?
The answer is very little and a whole lot. It depends. I’ll explain. Here’s what we know about the sequence of events that led to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, a bank with $209 billion in assets as of the end of December. (As of 2022 year-end,...
ADP payroll report comes in hot; is that bad news for Friday’s February job report?
Private payrolls increased by 242,000 in February, according to the ADP National Employment Report. Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal had been looking for the economy to add 205,000 jobs in the month. The February increase was well above the revised...
Stocks retreat on Fed chair Powell’s “higher and faster” testimony on interest rates
As the day wore on, the stock market decided that it liked Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s Senate testimony less and less. The Standard & Poor’s 500 was down just 0.72% at 11 a.m. New York time. The index closed down 1.53% for the day. The Dow...
2 Fed interest rate hawks speak, stocks stutter
It’s not like we don’t know that these two Federal Reserve presidents favor higher interest rates for longer. But still hearing them say it did put a crinkle in stock prices today. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic called for...
Financial markets aren’t happy with Fed minutes from February 1 meeting
Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s February 1 meeting show a central bank anticipating Federal Reserve further increases in interest rates in order to bring inflation down to the Fed’s 2% inflation target. “Participants observed that a restrictive policy...
Please Watch My YouTube Video: 6% Yes, 8% No
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-fortieth YouTube video: 6% Yes, 8% No. Today’s topic is: 6% Yes, 8% No. I’ve been saying that I think 6% is the peak for interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve this cycle. Inflation is not coming down as fast as...
The best way to get a 5% yield–my choices and their pluses and minuses
Remember the good ol’ days when Treasuries paid 0% or so and you had to give a bank your toaster to open an account, paying 0.01%? Right now you can find a CD paying 5%–and it doesn’t require locking up your money until the sun goes super-nova...
Fed quick out of the blocks after today’s CPI inflation report: Higher interest rates may be needed
You might even think they knew what was coming. (Which of course the Federal Reserve does.) The pixels weren’t even dry on this morning’s CPI inflation report–6.4% year over year, a 10 basis point drop from December, but a 0.5% month-to-month...
Year-over-year inflation rate drops again, but month-to-month rate shows increase
If you remember your college (or high school if you were precocious) calculus, what we’re worrying about now isn’t the rate of inflation, or even the change in the rate of inflation, but the change in the change of the rate of inflation. Or, in other...
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: 6% Is Coming
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-thirty-sixth YouTube video: 6% Is Coming This week’s Trend of the Week is: 6% is Coming. This song lyric keeps playing in my head: “They laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round.” I’ve...
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Why March 22 Is the Next Big Date
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-thirty-fourth YouTube video: Why March 22 Is the Next Big Date Today’s topic is: Why March 22 Is the Next Big Date. March 22 is the date of the Fed’s next meeting. And it’s the first time we’ll get projections...
You heard what you wanted to hear in Powell’s Fed talk today
On the one hand, stock markets heard Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reiterate his comments of last week that “disinflation” had become visible. (Disinflation is a slowing in the inflation rate.) At the close today the Standard & Poor’s 500...
Stocks fall as Wall Street tries to figure out what January’s huge job gain means
Do the huge January job gains mean that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates to a higher peak? That was the worry today and it was enough to send the Standard & Poor’s 500 0.61% lower at the close and to knock a solid 1% off the NASDAQ Composite....
Fed raises interest rates by 25 basis points as expected; market convinces itself that the Fed is talking “Pause soon”
The Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates Wednesday by 25 basis points, as expected. That brings the Fed’s benchmark interest rate to a range of 4.50% to 4.75%, the highest level since October 2007. After a pullback on the news and the Fed’s...
Please Watch My YouTube Video: Now It’s May for the Fed’s Pause
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-thirty-first YouTube video: Now It’s May for the Fed’s Pause Today’s topic is: Now It’s May for the Fed’s Pause. There wasn’t a lot of suspense about today’s Fed meeting. The CME FedWatch...
Sell any post-Fed rally–stocks are way ahead of themselves on the Fed, interest rates, and inflation
Here’s what I expect on Wednesday. The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee will announce a 25 basis-point interest rate increase. In his post-meeting press conference Fed chair Jerome Powell will try to talk the financial markets out of their...
Economy down but stocks up? Remember that the economy doesn’t equal the stock market
This may seem perplexing: Alphabet (AKA Google) announced that it would cut 12,000 jobs just days after Microsoft (MSFT) said it would cut 10,000 jobs. And stocks, especially technology stocks, rallied. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed up 1.89% today and...
Stocks rise as investors decide slowing wage gains outweigh higher than expected job growth
At the close today, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 2.28% to 38905. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had added 2.12%. The NASDAQ Composite was higher by 2.56% and the NASDAQ 100 was ahead 2.78%. All this on the heels of a December jobs report from the...
Friday jobs report coming up
It’s deja vu all over again as New York stock markets reopen for trading tomorrow. We ended 2022 waiting for the monthly jobs report from the Labor Department to tell us when slower job growth would signal the potential end to the Federal Reserve’s cycle...
How sticky will inflation prove to be in 2023? Lessons from Christmas shopping say, Stickier than the market now expects (and the Fed hopes)
The big investing and economic question for 2023 is How hard will it be to push inflation down to something near the Federal Reserve’s 2% target? The answer will determine (at least until rising unemployment gets the Fed to blink in the second half of 2023) how...
CPI inflation falls more than expected today–market moves higher but not too high ahead of the Fed tomorrow
Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that headline CPI inflation in November climbed at a 7.1% annual rate. Month-to-month inflation rose by just 0.1% from October. Core inflation, that is inflation without energy or food prices, rose at a 6.0% annual rate...
I expect a Santa Claus rally but after that it’s coal in the stocking for the first half of 2023
I expect investors and the stock market to behave as if Wednesday’s meeting of the Federal Reserve has settled the important questions of how high (will the Fed take its benchmark Fed Funds interest rate) and how long (will the Fed continue to raise interest...
Please Watch My YouTube Video: Waiting for the Fed
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-fourteenth YouTube video: Waiting for the Fed Today’s topic: Waiting for The Fed. We are about a week out from the Fed’s December 14 meeting, where another 50 basis point increase is expected. We’re now in the...
Hot enough to make the Fed say ,”75, please”? November jobs report comes in above forecasts
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 263,000 in November, the Labor Department said today. (And the October jobs total was revised upward to a gain of 284,000.) The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7%. Average hourly wages rose 0.6% in November from October. That was the...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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