As we await the July update of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), I thought it would be a good time to revisit the wage and salary report that jolted the Federal Reserve to take action last November.
The incessant fire hose of macro data is confusing professional and retail investors alike. That is why we advocate to instead to focus on the microeconomic, bottom-up factors, or more simply, the fundamentals.
In a nod to mercantilism, the U.S. federal government on Wednesday passed legislation to meaningfully support the onshoring manufacturing of semiconductor chips.
Real GDP came in at –0.9% yesterday, surprising consensus estimates which hovered in the low positive single digits. Among the biggest contributing factors were decreases in manufacturing inventories, private investment and government purchases.
The FOMC meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, and will issue its post-meeting statement at 2:00 PM ET on Wednesday. June’s year-over-year inflation rate hit a 9-handle and jumped 1.32% for the month, stoking market expectations the Fed would enact another 75 basis-point rate hike.
Hope is not a strategy for avoiding a recession. Fed Chair Jerome Powell sparked recession fears on Wednesday during a panel discussion at the European Central Bank’s annual policy forum in Sintra, Portugal.
Recently, the financial markets have made their own U-turn, pivoting from their bearish path to post broad based gains across stocks and bonds for the week ending June 24.
Remember way back when owning FAANGs was a badge of honor? Yes, a mere six months ago. Now FAANGs are a source of scorn. What happened? The Fed made an aggressive policy U-turn, raising interest rates and withdrawing liquidity from the economy and markets.
The erstwhile, extraordinary bull market advanced on a tailwind of low, short-term interest rates and massive Federal Reserve purchases of longer-maturity debt securities intended to stabilize long-term rates, referred to as “quantitative easing.”
Jay Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman, was king for a day with his aggressive 75 basis point (bp) increase in the Fed funds rate. This was the biggest jump since 1994, when Alan Greenspan chaired the Fed.