Fed Indicates Tolerance for Higher Inflation – Ep. 447

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Another “Greatest Deal Ever”

‘The Dow rose a little over 180 points today, closing above 26,000 -26,031.81, to be exact, for the first time during this bear market rally.  I still believe that we are in a bear market rally, not a new bull market. the catalyst for today for today’s stock market strength, and it was across the board; the markets were strong from the opening bell to the closing bell.  I think the high in the Dow was maybe just above 200; we sold off intra-day.  But the NASDAQ, the Russell 2000 were also higher on, again, optimism that there is going to be a trade deal between the U.S. and China.  Donald Trump is saying that he is negotiating the greatest deal ever, which is something that I have been saying, regardless of what the deal ends up being, Trump is going to say “It is the Greatest Deal Ever”.

What Helps China Is an Appreciating Yuan

But there was a lot of attention being paid to the deal, a lot of stories coming out that were close to a deal.  In fact, I read that they do have a agreement on exchange rates.  Currencies, obviously the U.S. likes to accuse China of being a currency manipulator, and so maybe there’s some type of deal that says they won’t manipulate their currency – they won’t use their currency as a weapon. Which is something China wasn’t going to do, anyway. To the extent that we win any concessions from the Chinese, where they agree not to weaken their currency, that basically amounts to nothing. In fact, a weak currency is bad for China.  What helps China is an appreciating Yuan.

Today’s “Fedspeak” on Inflation

More important than the talk about the trade deal was a lot of  “Fedspeak” today.  You had a lot of Fed officials that were talking; James Bullard, Clarida, John Williams – they were all talking.  The real common theme today was inflation. I have been talking about this for years.  How was the Federal Reserve going to basically respond to inflation above their 2% target? The real rate of inflation has probably been above 2%, in fact I’m confident that it’s been above 2% every year.