Stephen Stanley
Stephen Stanley
Stephen Stanley is a Canadian singer-songwriter associated with the band The Lowest of the Low. Stanley also performs as a solo artist, sometimes in collaboration with violinist Carla MacNeil...
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Today's report should convince most market participants that the March softness in the data was primarily a one-month phenomenon. Sounds like a recipe for continued 25 basis-point rate hikes for the foreseeable future.
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We have been quite skeptical throughout January because data tend to be erratic around the holidays and the turn of the year.
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A few weeks ago, the market was looking for a hike in March and May, but there have been some data points recently that have thrown May into question.
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Ironically, with all this strength, the net effect of these data on the fourth-quarter GDP number could be flat or possibly even marginally negative. This is because durable goods inventories were flat, which should more or less offset the positive influence of the stronger-than-anticipated December shipments figures. For first quarter GDP, however, these data are unambiguously positive.
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The Fed will have to take rates beyond neutral to a somewhat restrictive pace. Today's data totally supports that view of the world and should...eliminate any doubts about the near-term course of monetary policy.
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However, we are reaching a point on the calendar when the data should be settling down and there is no indication that the number of new filers is poised to move back to the 310,000 to 340,000 range that prevailed in 2005 prior to the hurricanes.
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What stock investors probably need to be thinking about now is 'what are profit margins doing?'. A little inflation wouldn't be so bad for the stock market, for Corporate America, but it wouldn't be good for the economy or the consumer.
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We expect productivity growth to moderate, and compensation gains and unit labor costs to pick up. Just another piece of the puzzle that points toward more Fed tightening than the market currently expects.
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The stock market has been pretty stubbornly hewing to the idea that the economy is slowing down and the Fed may stop soon. So to the extent that people perceive the statement as a little more hawkish, it's maybe upsetting.
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The still-massive swing in the pace of stockpiling in the second quarter sets the stage for an explosive third quarter.
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It would represent a bit of a shift from a macroeconomic focus to a banking/regulation focus.
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Fed officials will remain watchful for a reacceleration in unit labor costs, especially with anecdotal evidence and an upturn in average hourly earnings growth suggesting that wage pressures may be picking up.
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Fed officials have made clear that their heightened inflation concerns are related more to the outlook than the present situation. Thus, inflation fears have intensified even as core measures of prices have been exceedingly well behaved.
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There's a game of chicken going on with traders wanting to go short but too afraid of month-end demand to risk it. Anyway, nobody wants to be short in a holiday week when anything might happen geopolitically.