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FedEx May Be Wile E. Coyote Moment For Economy, Markets
Wall Street will spend the final day of a somewhat tedious week fretting over FedEx, whose CEO on Thursday evening said the world is headed for a recession.
"Raj, are we going into a worldwide recession?" Jim Cramer wondered, squinting at Raj Subramaniam during an on-set interview.
"Well, I'm not an economist...", Subramaniam began. Cramer stopped him. "Ohhh, you know more than economists, come on," Cramer half-joked. "I think so," Raj responded. "You think we are going into a worldwide recess
I just read that yesterday the Fed stopped buying MBS’s altogether. The housing unwind is about to pick up speed.
I didn’t want to sell my house anyway…
Transports are getting murdered on the FedEx signal.
IYT (transportation sector ETF) is down > 5% (as of 10AM).
If this CEO who started in June had checked out the company thoroughly before taking the job, he wouldn’t be so surprised. Doesn’t say anything good about his skills. Reason to sell just from this revelation.
Interesting, UPS reiterated its 2022 guid as recently as Sep 6.
This is not a Wiley Coyote moment- the street and everyone else has been speculating about a recession for months. Credit spreads have widened (but not blown out in most areas) and the yield curve has really inverted. Most of the economic prints save employment have been weak. Maybe this is news to stock jockeys, but not to anyone else. Oh and as far as inflation goes, I am willing to be with the US $ soaring and most metrics weak we are going to see a fairly quick adjustment to inflation in the real world – maybe not in CPI with OER but everyone else is likely to see much lower inflation in the next 6 months. If that happens (no guarantees) I want to see that Larry Summers publicly reflect on his latest statements. (PS – it won’t happen)
FedEx is down the most since 1980. Literally. It wasn’t priced in. Period.
And Larry Summers has been right for 18 months in a row. He doesn’t have anything to apologize for in this particular context. He was correct. A lot of other people weren’t. Period.
As tired as I might be of Summers, I’m even more tired of people waiting for him to be “wrong.” That ship has sailed. Even if inflation collapsed to 0% tomorrow, he was still right. The genie is out of the bottle. The horse has left the barn. Larry Summers was correct. It’s a bitter pill, I know. But it is what it is.
Also, it’s fruitless to feign frustration at seeing Larry on TV. He’s a paid TV contributor, a former Treasury Secretary, the most famous economist in the country and a public intellectual. Where else is he going to be?
Suggesting you’re “tired” of seeing him is like getting frustrated at the ubiquity of McDonald’s franchises. He’s not going anywhere. You’re going to be seeing Larry for the rest of your life or the rest of his life, whichever is shorter. And every time you do, he’s going to remind you that he was correct about inflation in 2021/2022.
Again: It is what it is.
personally I thought Target and Walmart were Wiley Coyote moments, with creeping margin issues continuing to gain across other sectors. They’ve been digested reasonably well through orderly market action…we may finally see some major market panic after next week’s likely 75bps hike…given the crumbling housing market and its likely broadening effects I’m wondering if 50bps would be more appropriate, especially since full QT has just commenced this month…