Dow on longest winning streak in 6 years

And did the OP knock on wood before posting?

 

Nice run for the Dow but 11 days of an index containing 30 stocks is hardly a sufficient sample upon which to judge a presidency, up or down, left or right. It’s like People-magazine politics.

And in reality, POTUS’ are given far too much credit or blame when markets move up or down, the indexes being a far more complex measure of the economy and of future expectations. One or two more than expected quarter to half point rate hikes by the Fed, or a prolonged hold period next year on rates without reduction because getting back to 2% inflation continues to prove difficult, and the Dow is back at 30-32,000 without a single policy change or enactment. Does Biden get the blame them? Or if q3 has bad tech earnings and there’s a 6 day drop on the NASDAQ? Whose fault would that be, his?

 

Worst take on GC in a while. Misguided nonsense.

Venting this warrants zero dialogue

Gradulations.

 

Gonna get another quarter point tomorrow (needed or not) and likely another 25 basis point hike in September absent more bank failures or a steep further drop in the inflation rate and/or corporate earnings, despite how far inflation has already dropped and the absence of a recession to date.

And while I think the Fed may be “overweighting” wage and employment growth this time around while waiting to pause and ultimately lowering rates, I don’t get a vote. Wish I did, as a commercial real estate developer this has been crushing-the whipsaw from low to high rates over a short 15 month period has destroyed our new business, at least for the time being, and devalued everything we worked on for years that was under construction during the past 2 years. It’s been brutal, so I don’t say any of this lightly, but I still think we are going to see another hike or two before a long pause into next year to see what happens in the employment sector through the remainder of 23 and into 24. Just my $0.02.

 

This is part of a WAPO editorial today:

"The Federal Reserve is almost certainly going to lift the benchmark interest rate Wednesday to nearly 5.5 percent, a stunning rise from practically zero in March 2022. The Fed was too slow to recognize inflation’s painful bite, which reached more than 9 percent year-over-year last summer, but the Fed’s credibility has been restored. The central bank acted aggressively, helping cool inflation to a fairly tolerable 3 percent.

Now, the path is murkier. As anyone alive in the 1970s knows, the biggest danger is to give up too soon. Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell has made this case repeatedly. “Is there a risk that we would go too far? Certainly, there is a risk, but I wouldn’t agree that it’s the biggest risk to the economy. The bigger mistake to make would be to fail to restore price stability,” he said last July. That’s still true today.

The Fed needs to project that it’s still in inflation-fighting mode. Congress gave the central bank two goals: maximum employment and price stability. With the unemployment rate at a half-century low, jobs still easy to obtain and labor force participation of Americans ages 25 to 54 at the highest level since 2002, the Fed deserves an A grade on employment but a C on price stability. Yes, there has been significant improvement, but inflation is still well above the 2 percent target.

Even more troubling, the inflation gauge that strips out volatile food and energy prices is sitting at 4.8 percent. Inflation, like unabated mold, has a tendency to return, and spores of it are still lurking in the services side of the economy: restaurants, travel, entertainment, car insurance."

 

There's the part that irks me. How can you leave out food and energy prices when you calculate inflation? Price on eggs, beef, and the like are about 2x what they were a couple years ago. Gas prices have stabilized so that is good, but my electric bill is still higher per kwh by almost 50% than 2021. Car Insurance, mentioned above, is out of control. Those are the real killers of real people's budgets - not restaurants, travel, and entertainment. I'm glad inflation is getting under control, but those prices aren't going back down.

 

They create two measures, one that includes those items and one that doesn't. It is because those items have highly volatile prices.

Eggs are actually a perfect example. They are not currently 2x as expensive as they were 2 years ago because their prices have fallen by more than 50% since January.

This can create a highly volatile measure that is not really as representative of the movement of prices across the board. However, because people do obviously buy those items, they also produce a statistic with those items in it.

 

But his half-assed response and constant tweets about "LIBERATE (blank)" sure as hell didn't help.

 

Not possible that the trillions pumped in DUE to COVID and the recovery of shutdowns DUE to COVID had any effect? Must have been the old Lyer in Chief and his charismatic bumbling policies. I guess you are amazed how reduced the deficits too!!!

 

Didn’t jinx it!

 

Couldn’t find a definitive source, but it appears 13 days might be the record going back to at least 1945… Bidenonmics going for the tie tomorrow…

 

Now tied for the longest streak of all time, I believe.…. Tomorrow, Biden goes for the Gold all to himself.

 

Yep, somehow the Dow finished up today even with the Fed rate increase. Biden's powerhouse economy can't be stopped.

 

Food and energy are part of the primary CPI measure - CPI all urban consumers. However given their volatilty and susceptibility to supply shocks they look at measures that exclude them to try to find the underlying trend.

 

Diamond Joe you son of a gun! You did it again!

 

Inflation with food and energy included is lower (~3.0%) than it is when you take them out (4.8%). What irks you about that?

Car and homeowners insurance are really only out of control in Florida. Perhaps our state government should do something about that instead of fighting a culture war?