The fact that Fed President chose the Fed’s 1998 response to talk about is chilling. And why mention Autumn of 2020 as the length of time to keep “inflation” running high… what inflation is he talking about? Is he saying “Mr. President, we will keep the stock market bubble inflating until the election”? Absolutely. Why? So the Fed can stay “independent”.
As we are witnessing again in early-2019, when “risk on” is inciting leveraged speculation markets create their own self-reinforcing liquidity. It is when “risk off” de-risking/deleveraging takes hold that illiquidity quickly reemerges as a serious issue. And I would argue that it is the inescapable predicament of speculative Bubbles that they create ever-increasing vulnerability to downside reversals, illiquidity, dislocation and panic.
You had better start trying to understand what is going on because you are about to live with the fallout in one way or another. It will not only affect your TSP investments, it will affect the future of our country. It is hard to get people to listen at the top especially when the naysayers have been “wrong” for so long and reality is so illusive.
While risk market participants fixate on capturing unbridled short-terms speculative returns, the safe havens see the inevitability of market dislocation, bursting Bubbles and ever more central bank monetary stimulus.
T his week’s FOMC meeting will be debated for years – perhaps even decades. The Fed essentially pre-committed to no rate hike in 2019. The committee downgraded both its growth and inflation forecasts. Having all at once turned of little… Read More ›
December’s market instability and resulting Fed capitulation to the marketplace continue to reverberate. At this point, markets basically assume the Fed is well into the process of terminating policy normalization. Only a couple of months since completing its almost $3.0… Read More ›
The world is now fully embroiled in a most precarious period. I wonder if the Fed is comfortable seeing the markets dash skyward – the small caps up 16.4% y-t-d, Banks 15.9%, Transports 15.2%, Biotechs 18.5% and the Semiconductors 17.0%…. Read More ›
… deflation is a fateful consequence of bursting Bubbles – Bubbles inflated in the process of central bankers fighting so-called “deflationary forces.” Now, after thirty years of unending global Credit growth, activist central banking and egregious financial speculation, Bubble risk has never been so great: “The amazing lurch toward recession” and financial dislocation specifically because of a failed experiment in QE and inflationist monetary management.
Yet with global markets in a synchronized rally, one easily assumes the Fed and central banks have again worked their magic. Stability has engulfed the world. Nothing could be more detached from reality.
Serious illiquidity issues were unfolding a small number of trading sessions ago, as equities and fixed-income outflows – along with derivatives-related and speculative selling – began to overwhelm the marketplace. Fed assurances reversed trading dynamics. De-risking/deleveraging has, for now, given way to “risk on.” A powerful confluence of short covering and risk embracement (and leveraging) has acutely speculative markets once again perceiving liquidity abundance and unwavering central bank support.