Circling the Wagons Very quickly this morning, we see the Fed as circling the wagons ahead of a hawkish repositioning in March. To be sure, the Fed’s ability to pull off

Monday Morning Notes, 2/3/25 Note: Shortened note as I am traveling today to join Sassan Ghahramani in Washington D.C., and although this is a jam-packed week for data that includes

Fed Remains on the Sidelines The January FOMC meeting ended as we anticipated with the Fed holding rates constant and Powell giving nothing to believe a March cut was on

Monday Morning Notes, 1/27/25 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning The Fed will leave interest rates unchanged at the end of this week’s FOMC meeting. We don’t think Fed

Summary The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their latest demographic forecast, and budget and economic outlooks last week. The updated forecasts now serve as the baseline when scoring the economic

Tuesday Morning Notes, 1/21/25 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning The Fed is on hold for the foreseeable future. With economic activity and job growth still resilient, the Fed

CPI Eases Inflation Concerns A soft CPI report spurred a rally in bonds and reignited bets on rate cuts this year. It doesn’t change our expectations that the Fed is

PPI Soft, But PCE Components Solid PPI inflation was softer than expected though market participants quickly noted that underlying components supported an increase in core-PCE estimates. We build upon that

Monday Morning Notes, 1/13/25 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning The employment report supports our expectations that the Fed will hold rates steady for the foreseeable future, likely at

The US legislative and policy agenda is packed. The incoming Trump Administration and GOP-controlled Congress plan to pass legislation on border security and immigration, trade and tariffs, deregulation, and tax

Hawkish Minutes Overshadow Dovish Waller Federal Reserve Governor Waller reiterated support for additional rate cuts if inflation falls as expected, but the release of the December FOMC meeting minutes reveal

JOLTS Will Keep Fed on Sidelines Despite Mixed Message The November JOLTS report revealed a surge in job openings while the hiring and quit rates fell: Job openings rose to

The US dollar weakened sharply today on a Washington Post news report that President-elect Donald Trump’s economic team is mulling universal tariffs on select strategic industries, instead of on all

Monday Morning Notes, 1/6/25 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning Welcome to 2025.  The Fed will leave policy unchanged at the January FOMC meeting, and we anticipate that will

Monday Morning Notes, 12/23/24 This is a shortened holiday week edition of Monday Morning Notes. As we exit 2024, a new game’s afoot. The Fed looks determined to hold policy

Fed Delivers the Hawkish Cut The Fed cut policy rates 25bp, signaled a skip in January, and opened the door to an extended pause, all as we expected. The Fed,

Monday Morning Notes, 12/16/24 The Fed will cut policy rates 25bp this week and signal an expectation to slow the pace of cuts in 2025. We expect that between the statement,

Monday Morning Notes, 12/9/24 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning The Fed will almost certainly cut rates at next week’s FOMC meeting. Employment rebounded in November as expected but

Fedspeak Supportive of December Cut The lack of any pushback against a December rate cut and Federal Reserve Governor Chris Waller’s lean in favor of a cut matches our expectation

JOLTS Consistent with December Cut October job openings came in at 7.7m compared to expectations of 7.5m while September was revised downward. While above expectations, October openings remained below August levels. Looking