Perhaps Powell’s pivot was highly influenced by having access to the Fed’s favorite inflation indicator, the Personal Consumption Expenditure Index (PCE), well ahead of its official release last Friday. As this headline from the Wall Street Journal shows, the index went into negative territory,
…
Powell did it for the third time. He proved for the third time that you should listen to him carefully until he does something completely different, and then you should listen to him again. After raising rates aggressively starting in April 2022, after he had said that the Fed wouldn’t raise rates until the end of 2023 at the earliest,
…
Last week may have finally been the week when the Fed aligned with markets that the peak in rates may be in for this cycle. The Fed held rates in what was initially categorized as a “hawkish pause.” It was during the Jay Powell press conference that the market started to believe that maybe the Fed was done raising rates.
…
I was definitely in the camp that once the yield curve inverted, we were headed for a recession within a year or so. The spread between the 10-year Treasury and 2-year Treasury yields went negative (inverted) in early July 2022.
…
I must say that when I read this tweet last week, I felt heard, listened to, and understood. It was cathartic in a way.
I know I’m being a bit melodramatic, but there are so many cross-currents in the economy that it has made forecasting quite challenging.
…
I have written continuously over the last year or so about critical yields for the 10 and 2-year Treasuries such that if they were breached, the probability of them going higher would be quite elevated.
Looking at the following 10-year Treasury chart,
…
Fed Chairman Jay Powell spoke last Friday at the Jackson Hole conference for Central Bankers. He was pretty clear that the Fed would remain vigilant in its fight against inflation.
The economy is doing better than the Fed expected,
…
Last week the CPI report was released. One can see that shelter is now by far the biggest component of inflation. Non-Housing Services are growing at a moderate rate while Core Goods prices are declining.
This chart shows how CPI excluding shelter has been moderating quite significantly,
…
This will be a rather short blog following up on last week’s focus on key levels for the 2 and 10-year Treasury yields.
I’m a bit tired as last night (Thursday), I had a flight connection through D/FW Airport to return home to Orange County.
…
Last week’s ADP payroll report really rocked the bond and stock markets. It was further support for the Fed to remain tighter for longer. This chart shows how strong private employment growth was.
On the other hand,
…
