The two day FOMC meeting commences today. It is widely expected the FOMC will announce a complete halt to its monthly asset purchases with holdings peaking at $4.3 trillion. Since 2009, the Fed’s balance sheet has ballooned over 700%. Will the Committee comment about the...
The S & P 500 rose again Friday capping the best week since January 2013 amid better than expected earnings, data that surprised on the upside and monetary policy optimism. This was first “up week” in five....
Stocks staged a strong advance on speculation of European central bank bond buying, strong earnings and speculation the Federal Reserve will boost stimulus if growth slows....
Equities staged the biggest rally of the year following the release of the Minutes from the September FOMC meeting. The Minutes stated “growth might be slower than they expected if foreign economic growth came in weaker than anticipated.” The Fed also commented the rising value...
Equities declined sharply as the IMF cut its outlook for global growth and German industrial production fell, the biggest decline since 2009. Selling accelerated late in the afternoon after several moving average lines were violated. In my view, the proverbial machines co-opted trading once these...
In my view the employment report was relatively strong in many dimensions. Both private sector and non-farm payrolls were considerably higher than expected and so were the revisions from August. The jobless rate fell to 5.9%, the lowest rate since July 2008’s level of 6.1%. ...
Will today’s data confirm or deny the rising sentiment that the overnight rate will be 0.50% by September 2015? Fed Funds futures which are a gauge of market sentiment now suggest a 79% chance that such will occur. That compares with a 63% chance at...
Is the market setting itself up for failure? A study by the San Francisco Fed suggests investors appear “less uncertain” about the course of monetary policy than the FOMC participants. Wow!...
The much hyped speech of FRB Chair Yellen has come and gone with little impact. Yellen’s remarks were similar to that of the July FOMC Minutes which showed the Committee growing more aware that labor markets are approaching full employment albeit the “underutilization of labor...
The much hyped speech of FRB Chair Yellen has come and gone with little impact. Yellen’s remarks were similar to that of the July FOMC Minutes which showed the Committee growing more aware that labor markets are approaching full employment albeit the “underutilization of labor...