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
Fed Should NOT Taper!
Paul Schatz, president of Heritage Capital, typically lets it all hang out when expressing his views on markets, economics and sometimes even politics. An active asset allocator and adviser with 25 years’ experience, Mr. Schatz is on board with the Federal Reserve‘s quantitative-easing policy and would even like to see it extended beyond early next year, when the Fed is expected to start tapering its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases. InvestmentNews: Do you think it’s time for the Fed […]
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Date: November 25, 2013
Fed Day
The Fed concludes their two day meeting today with an announcement at 2pm and no press conference with Ben Bernanke. Markets are widely expecting absolutely nothing! No taper, certainly no increase and absolutely not even the hint of a rate hike anytime in the next few years. There is a very bullish tendency for stocks to rally on statement day and we should expect nothing different unless today begins the long awaited pullback. I have written about stocks being tired […]
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Date: October 30, 2013
Rolling Over or Revving Up?
Last week, I wrote about how stocks were looking a bit tired and in need of a rest. Nothing has changed since that piece. The lagging blue chip indices like the Dow and S&P 500 reached higher while the leadership indices like the S&P 400 Mid Cap, Russell 2000 Small Cap and Nasdaq 100 have moved sideways. This is all healthy, routine and constructive behavior that should not lead to anything more than a trading pullback worst case scenario. Market […]
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Date: October 28, 2013
Oversold and Looking to Bounce
Stocks continue to feel the hangover from the post Fed no taper party as well as Larry Summers stepping aside. While the Russell 2000 Index of small caps briefly saw all time highs today, the other major indices remain in pull back mode. This all seems very healthy and routine and I would expect another leg higher in the bull market after this period of weakness ends over the coming 2-7 weeks. In the very short-term, stocks are oversold and are supposed […]
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Date: September 25, 2013
Bernanke’s Worry Lines & CNBC’s Closing Bell
I will on CNBC’s Closing Bell today, Friday, at 4:00pm discussing the lack of any taper from the Fed, what they see that the masses don’t and where the markets are ahead. Earlier this week in Street$marts (click on link to see) and on my blog, www.investfortomorrowblog.com I spelled out the three scenarios that could result from the Fed meeting. While I did not believe any taper was warranted, the market was expecting a token $10-$15 billion. When Bernanke & Company did nothing, risk […]
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Date: September 20, 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
Pre Fed Chatter
As expected, here was the usual spirited discussion I had on CNBC’s Squawk Box before the Fed meeting. I firmly believe that when the Fed reduces the amount of money printing, that is a form of stimulus reduction and interest rates increase. With the Fed Funds rate at essentially 0%, Bernanke used money printing as another tool to effectively have negative rates. http://www.cnbc.com/id/100823745
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Date: June 19, 2013
