@theMarket: Fed No Longer in the Driver's SeatBy Bill Schmick,
03:25PM / Friday, March 21, 2025 | |
This week, the Federal Reserve Bank hiked its inflation forecast and reduced the growth target for the economy this year. Despite this news, traders termed the March FOMC meeting a "dovish pause," although it did not help the stock market.
The upshot of Chairman Jerome Powell's Q&A session on Wednesday afternoon after the FOMC meeting was that as far as the future is concerned, the Fed would need to wait and see just like the rest of us. In the meantime, the bank decided to slow its quantitative tightening program. That was interpreted as dovish by most Fed watchers since it does add liquidity to the credit markets.
Powell did say tariffs 0 Comments
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@theMarket: The Markets' Flash CorrectionBy Bill Schmick,
03:17PM / Friday, March 14, 2025 | |
The market's decline has been one of the fastest in history. The fall has been fueled by the Trump administration's economic policies. The question most investors are wrestling with is what to do about it.
Looking back on this period in a year or two, I guarantee that most investors will have trouble remembering exactly what happened. There is nothing abnormal in this decline thus far except its speed. It is a simple garden variety pullback, which occurs at least once a year if not more. It is the price of doing business for equity investors and savers with tax-deferred retirement accounts.
Given that, the decline is probably a good thing for an 0 Comments
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@theMarket: Tariff Talk Trashes Stocks as Stagflation Fears RiseBy Bill Schmick,
04:20PM / Friday, March 07, 2025 | |
The latest worry to plague Wall Street is lower growth and rising inflation. What is worse, the tariff war that President Trump insists will lead to a "golden age" for America is proving to be a nightmare for financial markets.
"There will be a little disturbance, but we are OK with that," the president admitted Tuesday evening in his address to Congress. His mission that night was to sell America on his vision of a new economy of high tariffs, low immigration, low taxes, and low regulation. Main Street is buying that message, with approval ratings of almost 70 percent of those who watched the address. Unfortunately, global financial markets are not so 0 Comments
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@theMarket: A growth scare adds another worry to the market mixBy Bill Schmick,
03:56PM / Friday, February 28, 2025 | |
Tariff fears, inflation worries, and now, an economic growth scare, have conspired to sour moods in the markets. The Trump trade has all but disappeared and in its place, investors are looking for defensive areas to protect capital.
Uncertainty is the bane of any market's existence and right now that element is in abundance. This week we have seen concerns over inflation take a back seat to an even greater worry—a slowing economy. It began with last week's retail sales number. The data was weaker than many expected as consumers pulled back on their discretionary spending.
That could have been explained away as simply a bout of buying fatigue 0 Comments
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@theMarket: Inflation and Tariff Fears Drive MarketsBy Bill Schmick,
02:52PM / Friday, February 21, 2025 | |
Gold continues to make new highs. Soft commodities and materials climb a wall of worry and foreign equities rise from the dead. It is all part of a market mindset that a tariff war is right around the corner.
As April draws near, President Trump continues to reiterate that he is planning to levy tariffs on America's trading partners. Investors are worried. Given Trump's predilection toward hyperbole, the markets are unsure whether to take his statements at face value. He has used threats to get what he wants on so many occasions that April could come and go without any tariffs at all. What to do?
The move higher in some commodities is largely a 0 Comments
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