The Federal Reserve and investors appear to be locked in what one veteran market watcher has described as an epic game of “chicken.” What Fed Chair Jerome Powell says Wednesday could determine the winner.
Cruisin’ for a bruisin’? To some market watchers, investors now appear way too big for their breeches. They expect Powell to attempt to take them down a peg or two. In Powell’s case, that would likely mean emphasizing that the labor market remains significantly out of balance, calling for a significant reduction in job openings that will require monetary policy to remain restrictive for a long period, Torres said.
Powell and the Fed have certainly expressed concerns about the potential for loose financial conditions to undercut their inflation-fighting efforts. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite logged its fourth straight weekly rise last week, up 4.3% to end Friday at its highest since Sept. 14. The S&P 500 SPX, +0.25% advanced 2.5% to log its highest settlement since Dec. 2, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.08% rose 1.8%.
“So from a holistic perspective, the Fed feels they are getting policy more restrictive,” she said, as evidenced, for example, by the significant rise in mortgage rates over the past year.
Nationalise the federal reserve ! Liberate the Fed liberate the US!
There’s no showdown lol. Feds always win.