The Fed’s next challenge: Wage pressure

Stock markets were rattled by the Fed's hawkish tone in the wake of the FOMC meeting. Markets took a risk-off tone, but Jerome Powell walked back some of the hawkishness during his Congressional testimony the following week. The Fed Chair stuck to his familiar refrain that inflation is transitory, dismissed the idea of 1970s-style inflation as...

Just a hiccup?

Mid-week market update: The S&P 500 has shown negative seasonality at the end of June. So far, the index has been tracking its historical pattern well in 2021. The market took fright last week from the abrupt hawkish tone of the FOMC statement and subsequent Powell press conference last week. By Friday, it had become...

Boo! Powell scares the children!

Preface: Explaining our market timing models  We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade.   The Trend...

China rides to the rescue?

The headlines from last week sounded dire. It began when China’s May economic activity report was disappointing, with industrial production, retail sales, and fixed-asset investment missing market expectations.      Then the Federal Reserve took an unexpected hawkish turn. The statement from the FOMC meeting acknowledged that downside risks from the pandemic were receding as vaccination...

The market’s instant FOMC report card

Mid-week market update: It's always difficult to make any kind of coherent market comment on FOMC meeting days. The market reaction can be wild and price moves can reverse themselves in the coming days.   Nevertheless, experienced investors understand that it's not the announcement that matters, but the tone announcement compared to market expectations. Bloomberg...