Monday Morning Notes, 1/3/22 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning The Fed and market participants continue to manage the timing of the first rate hike of this cycle in

Final Omicron Thoughts Heading into the Holidays Many of us will be only lightly working until after the New Year, and the resulting thin markets often contribute to volatility during

Monday Morning Notes, 12/20/21 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning The Fed is positioned to hike rates as early as March with Omicron as the only real stumbling block

Additional Thoughts on the Fed Pivot Last night at dinner I gave my daughter the choice of either reviewing the latest issue of Fine Woodworking magazine or working through the

The Fed Operationalizes its Hawkish Pivot The FOMC accelerated the pace of the taper and revealed a hawkish forecast for 2022 and beyond. The outcome of the meeting was largely

Last Minute Thoughts Heading into the FOMC Meeting We are now less than 24 hours away from the final FOMC meeting of 2021, one that is expected to “operationalize” Chair

Monday Morning Notes, 12/13/21 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning The FOMC is meeting for the first time since Chair Jerome Powell publicly pivoted the Fed in a hawkish

On The Dots You ask, I answer, now with some quick thoughts on next week’s dot plot. The theme for the week is my expectation of a high probability that

Why March? Last night I wrote that we thought there was a high probability the first rate hike will come at the March FOMC meeting. Some clients have asked for

Monday Morning Notes, 12/6/21 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning The Fed pivot to reducing accommodation more aggressively is underway, beginning with an accelerated pace of tapering next week.

Powell Seals the Deal Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell sounded an unmitigatedly hawkish note in today’s appearance on Capitol Hill. His remarks were consistent with my interpretation of the written

Quick Note on Powell After the market close today the Fed released Chair Jerome Powell’s written testimony for his Tuesday trip to Capitol Hill. I think it leans hawkish. First,

Monday Morning Notes, 11/29/21 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning The Omicron variant roiled markets last week but we have only much speculation and few hard facts. The Fed

Powell For Chair, Brainard for Vice Chair President Biden ended the suspense today by announcing the renomination of Jerome Powell for Chair and the nomination of Lael Brainard for Vice

Note: The most significant data last week was the retail sales report, which I covered in my 11/16 note. This is a holiday-shortened week, with Wednesday being the big data

Williams, Evans, Fed Chair A couple of things of note today. First, Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans said rate hikes: “could begin next year after we finish our asset-purchasing

Retail Sales, Fed Speakers at Opposite Ends of the Policy Spectrum   Retail sales surprised on the upside with the ex-autos category gaining 1.7% compared to an expected 1.0%. As

Monday Morning Notes, 11/15/21 If You Don’t Have Time This Morning Watch for more hawkish drift in Fed speak in the wake of last week’s CPI report. The Fed’s transitory

CPI, Fed Personnel CPI came in on the upside, rising 0.9% for the month (11.9% annualized). Core came in at 0.6% compared to expectations of 0.4%: Increasingly this is not

Chair Nomination, Fed Speakers Bloomberg broke a story overnight that Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard was still in the running for the Fed, including this bit: But the White House