
Stoic, For Now
The Fed's on hold until June most probably. And Jerome Powell wants no part of the internecine partisan warfare on Capitol Hill.
Those were the main takeaways from Powell's Senate testimony on Tuesday. The proceedings were predictably uneventful, where that means there wasn't much to trade around.
As discussed at some length in this week's macro preview, Powell simply isn't a guy who's amenable to being baited, and particularly not by a group of people (i.e., politicians) who aren't his intell
And when Powell goes and folks on the Hill and in the land find out he should have been reappointed, our financial lives will end.
Do you think he would even accept a reappointment? Powell has got to be tired. If ever anyone deserved a shot at retirement, it’s he.
At some point, the hopefully theorized “Trump Put” will be called on.
The market is clearly betting on such a thing, as it is on tariffs not actually happening. I saw a chart suggesting that aluminum futures price in UK and US have deviated rather little since the 25% tariffs were announced.
I suspect market will find that while Trump cares plenty about stock prices, he cares about other things more. Anyway, everyone knows stock declines can be addressed with Executive Orders, if Xi can then Trump can too, amirite?