[edit] It appears there was some confusion by at least one reader. This post is not about the gold CoT or stockcharts.com showing something wrong with the CoT. It is…
Just posting to try to get the media settings right on the new site format. While we're at it, let's note that SPX is now at the top of our…
So FOMC rolls over on Uncle Buck, secure in the knowledge that it is playing with the house’s money for now. USD could drop a long way before anyone would get overly concerned about it. So in standing down, they have managed to play their own game of global Whack-a-Mole with the currency while continuing to have credibility (waning though it is) vs. their counterparts.
It will be interesting now to see if inflation signals start to percolate. I have remained cautious on the ‘inflation trade’, taking it as a bounce and little more. But if these clowns keep it up we are going to have a genuine inflation effects bonanza on our hands down the road. Here are a couple of things to watch for signals.
Commodities vs. the stock market
TIP vs. TLT…
Not only was there not a policy surprise – you know, in the face of recent commodity strength and those embedded services costs throughout the economy – but the Fed did not even talk tough, which I thought they might do. Maybe Yellen will wobble and speak out of both sides of her mouth at the press conference.
Here is the USD ETF flopping on the non-event.
Time to whip through this text and then start hitting buttons! Or not.
Release Date: March 16, 2016
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January suggests that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace despite the global economic and financial developments of recent months. Household spending has been increasing at a moderate rate, and the housing sector has improved further; however, business fixed investment and net exports have been soft. A range of recent indicators, including strong job gains, points to additional strengthening of the labor market. Inflation picked up in recent months; however, it continued to run below the Committee’s 2 percent longer-run objective, partly reflecting declines in energy prices and in prices of non-energy imports. Market-based measures of inflation compensation remain low; survey-based measures of longer-term inflation expectations are little changed, on balance, in recent months.