Ray, No intrusion at all. By my count, the thread is fairly well split 50/50 on how high a hike AG and his fellow conspirators decide to go.
PPI numbers were tame and if the CPI comes in tame, 25 is in the cards. In any event, this is the toughest call the Fed will have to make this year or maybe ever, IMO.
One way to go (not my thought, but some analyst on Bloomberg's Money show said it this morning) was that the Fed could do 50 and take a neutral bias, thereby appeasing the bond market and the stock market in one fell swoop. If they only do 25, then I am pretty sure their bias will be to tighten. If they do 50 and keep a tightening bias, well, then it boils down to your conspiracy theory. Any move like that would live in infamy as the "Revenge of the Republicans".
The best and only book I have ever read about the Fed was "Secrets of the Temple" - the stiking similarity about the Fed's behavior now and what was done in the 1928 to '29 timeframe, is the attitude the Fed has about "excesses in the market and the economy". The part which I think has already happened is the crash of 2000. Actually, I heard last night that margin borrowing, which is nominally at an all-time high, is only one tenth what is was in '29. To me, this is a good sign.
Hoping for the best and planning for the worst.
Cheers, Keith |
