In the past the Fed has pointed to prices in cell phone services as one reason for subdued inflation. This anomaly has now largely rolled off the year-over-year figures, so the Fed should be afforded a clearer picture moving forward.
Today's topics include the Fed put, disappointing economic data, previewing the FOMC minutes, bank stress tests, Chinese tensions, the ECB's normalization, earnings expectations, market volatility, the 200-day MA and global debt.
Financial markets are unfortunately suffering from a circular reference due to group-think and herd mentality. We use the information and ideas from 'the group' as a heuristic to form our own opinions. The world has become exponentially more complicated and inter-connected, therefore to remain functional we allow the crowd to help us make decisions. Unfortunately, positioning in financial markets become polarized and surveys of the economy are of waning utility.
The rise of the technology sector has produced an anchor for core inflation. Convergence between other sectors like industrials, materials, and consumer discretionary is bound to occur, but not over the short run. All in all, the game has changed for inflation and so too should the Fed's use of a target.
Today's topics include bank trading profits, the trade war, inflation anomalies, Fed President Kaplan, the yield curve, Bahrain's oil discovery, the CBO's budget deficit forecast and declining productivity.
With Q1 earnings season kicking off this week, the bar has been set extremely high.
Operating environments for pipeline operators in Texas and Western Canada could not be more different. The implications for capital investment are clear and likely long-lasting.
A look at the April 6, 2018 CoT report.
Today's topics include the global economic slowdown, market sentiment, the trade war, securities lending, cash's place in a portfolio, artificial intelligence, regime change and volatility.