No Cut Imminent, But Fed Has Dovish Take on Tariffs The March FOMC meeting ended with no change in either the policy rate or the expected path of rates. The outcomes

Monday Morning Notes, 3/17/25 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning The Fed will hold rates steady this week as it balances risks to both sides of its mandate. We

Monday Morning Notes, 3/10/25 Despite a calm exterior, FOMC participants grow increasingly anxious about the rising risks to both sides of the mandate and the institution’s ability to resist pressure

Bits and Pieces We have been busy with client meetings this week. Below are some of the topics we have been discussing: Tariffs and SEP forecasts. FOMC participants did not fully

Powell’s Test Given our position that Trump’s policy agenda is much more likely to trigger Fed rate cuts than rate hikes, we can hardly recommend that market participants attempt to

Monday Morning Notes, 3/3/25 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning This week will set the tone going into the Fed’s blackout period ahead of the March FOMC meeting. Fed

Fed Will Wait for Hard Data Another round of soft data, this time from the Conference Board, encouraged market participants to price in additional easing this year, including a 30%

Quick Data Note While we caution that regional Fed PMI surveys are soft data, the February Dallas Fed manufacturing PMI exemplifies the growing uncertainty to both sides of the distribution

Monday Morning Notes, 2/24/25 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning For the Fed, risks are growing to both sides of the distribution. On one side, Trump-driven uncertainty is beginning

Tuesday Morning Notes, 2/18/25 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning As we have expected since the beginning of the year, the Fed is positioning for an extended pause. FOMC

Quick Note on CPI There’s some risk to commenting on inflation ahead of the PPI numbers, but the January CPI release supports our view that the Fed will become more

Monday Morning Notes, 2/10/25 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning Fed speakers have coalesced around a near-term hawkish narrative. With rates now down 100bp from their cycle peak, the

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