Ben Bernanke Cringing
New Fed chair, Janet Yellen, presided over her first FOMC meeting this week with her first press conference yesterday afternoon. In short, as much as I supported her for the position, it’s crystal clear that she is no Ben Bernanke and has much to learn. On the positive side, she was very calm and took time to give thoughtful and detailed answers. I especially liked when she stated that the glide path to tighter monetary policy was going to be […]
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Date: March 20, 2014
Ho Ho Ho! Santa Bernanke Arrived
Greetings from usually cold and snowy, but recently tropical and wet Vermont! After three days of skiing in the rain, Old Man Winter came back and cut the temps by 70%! From short sleeve shirts and a light jacket, I am gearing up in full winter weather garb for wind chills around 0 today on top. Ben Bernanke did it! The master. The maestro. He saw the downside of announcing a taper to their $85B a month in asset purchases, but […]
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Date: December 24, 2013
Do NOT Taper
As difficult as it was at the time, quantitative easing (money printing) has now become an acceptable weapon in the Fed’s arsenal. Throughout my life, I was always taught, wrongly so, that printing money always leads to inflation and sometimes hyperinflation. And that all we needed to do was look at the Weimar Republic or Argentina or most recently Zimbabwe for examples of a currency gone rogue. When the Fed cut rates to essentially zero, critics and Doomsdayers came out […]
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Date: December 18, 2013
Big Week Ahead
For several weeks, I have warned about market sentiment at “rally killing levels”. Not a single thing has changed for the better in this department. The bulls are bulls and the bears are kinda, sorta bulls, at least through year-end. That continues to make me worried, but not enough given the calendar to take serious action. I want to preface my next comment by saying I absolutely do not believe we are on the precipice of another financial crisis like […]
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Date: December 16, 2013
Taper Talk
Why does it seem like every single Fed meeting has become “the single most important FOMC meeting ever” in the media? And here we are again. The Fed begins a two day meeting tomorrow and it is widely expected that they will announce the first of many subsequent tapers at either this meeting or the one in November. The only surprise will be if they remove any kind of taper talk from their announcement or commentary. Although I do not agree with tapering […]
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Date: September 18, 2013
Announcement from Bernanke & Co. Just Around the Corner
Here are my thoughts on the Fed meeting today and into the fall as well as Bernanke’s impending successor. I think this was one of the clearest, most concise Fed discussions I have had. What do you think? http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/fed-meeting-tap-investors-await-bumpy-ride-112711784.html For today, anything other than what Bernanke said in front of Congress last week will be a big surprise. And no, I absolutely do not think Bernanke knows what Friday’s jobs report will be. As a tiny business who participates in the […]
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Date: July 31, 2013
Fox Business Markets Now on July 25th at 1pm
I am going to be on Fox Business’ Markets Now tomorrow (Thursday July 25) at 1:00pm EDT discussing earnings, the upcoming Fed meeting and where stocks are headed this quarter. I am also going to spend some time with the folks at Yahoo Finance creating three segments. The first will be on the comparison between 1987 and the current market while the second will focus on the upcoming Fed meeting and when Bernanke & Co. will begin to pull the punch […]
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Date: July 24, 2013
Short-Term Crossroad
Interesting crossroad for the stock market. Price action says more rally coming shortly while sentiment and internals argue for a 4-8% pullback into August. I guess both could occur in theory. With the Dow, S&P 500 and Russell 2000 hitting fresh all time highs, it will be telling to see if any more cracks appear in the market’s foundation. We’ll take a look at our regular column of Canaries in the Coal Mine shortly. Yesterday, Ben Bernanke’s much anticipated and […]
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Date: July 18, 2013
Big Ben to the Rescue
It wasn’t long ago that we discussed Bernanke throwing cold water on the rally, something I thought was overblown. But on Wednesday after the markets closed, he did a complete 180 and essentially gave the crack addict more crack. While I was not at all surprised with what he said, I thought the market overreacted somewhat. Precious metals stocks and emerging markets were the biggest beneficiaries of the Bernanke Bang which should be expected given how decimated they were. Friday […]
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Date: July 12, 2013
And Now China
Financial markets have been hit with the double whammy. First, Bernanke described the Fed’s plan for tapering asset purchases later this year and next and overnight, China reported weaker economic data and some trouble in their banking system. The markets responded with much selling on the heels of yesterday’s sell off, taking the Dow under 15,000. The next downside target for the major stock market indices is just below their respective May lows. After that, markets are probably looking at a […]
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Date: June 20, 2013
