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Traders Brace As US Inflation Updates Collide With Tariff Soap Opera
Investors and traders (two distinct classes of market participants, only one of which makes money reliably over long horizons) are compelled to grapple with a US inflation update this week.
CPI's due Wednesday, and the BLS figures tend to be less friendly than the BEA's PCE price growth series, which the Fed officially targets. The last CPI update (covering January) was regrettable, to put it politely. The new figures, covering February, may be better at the margins, but the release will almost
It is well to keep in mind tariffs are a consumption tax on imports. Consumption taxes don’t increase consumption, except initially when consumers and businesses attempt to front run the tax. It will be interesting to see if the channel gets stuffed and consumption falls off rapidly in the next 3-6 months. It is amusing to watch Bessent and Lutnick and wall street contort themselves trying to make this like some grand plan. It isn’t and we will all pay the price.
A couple things about Trump are clear. He can’t function without “enemies” he can pretend he has conquered to show his “pure genius” and become the top boss. He might not have started out to make enemies of us all, but that’s the way it’s working out. His cult followers will be the last to take a bullet for him, even though it won’t take long for everyone to get on the list. He’s running out of steam. His two latest idiocies were cutting down one our most important resources and playing with DST. It’s also clear he has only the vaguest notion about his congressional constituents, especially those he treats as “suckers.” After the election last year, I wrote a number on a piece of paper and locked it in my desk. It said Musk wouldn’t last past spring. I’ll be wrong, but not by much. Almost the entire cabinet has made at least one really stupid mistake so far. Who knew the first to break ranks would be Rubio.
cult followers, dead accurate !
There is no Trump put, because he cannot do the thing he’d have to do to make good on the put. He cannot forswear tariffs, he cannot stop deporting labor, he cannot stop slashing at the so-called deep state, he cannot stop talking from the poor to give to the rich. He might be able to read mollifying words off a teleprompter, but his credibility is evaporating.
Never underestimate stupid. And never doubt the faith of a doomsday cult.
“Traders Brace” ….Hang on boys. So much confusion. You’d think it was planned !