Reuters flashed this headline: “Manhattan apartment sales plummet in January to 2012 low”
Is Europe out of the woods yet? Nope. Eighteen European countries have negative 2-year sovereign yields. Not a good sign.
As Jerome Powell and The Federal Reserve continue to raise rates and let Treasury Notes on their $4.4 trillion balance mature, we are seeing financial market disruptions, such as spikes in stock market and 10-year Treasury Note volatility. But the one asset that is seeing a decline in volatility is gold.
Apocalypse Now! was a 1979 Francis Ford Coppola film starring, among others, Northern Virginia resident Robert Duvall as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore. Little did Coppola know that his immortal film would foretell the retail store apocalypse of the 2010’s.
February 27th is the day when Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke to Congress about the state of the US economy. And the Dow has fallen 1,400 since that speech.
Fed Chair Jay Powell said he was going to pursue rate normalization (aka, letting rates rise). And he seems to be a man of his word:
Like a mirage in the desert sand, inflation is still missing in action (MIA).
I appeared on Stuart Varney’s show on Fox Business a few years ago and was asked what will happen when The Fed starts raising rates again (including letting the balance sheet shrink). My answer was “Kaboom.
Yes, The Fed’s version of Rigor Mortis (aka, Fed-or Mortis) is setting in.
Federal Reserve Chair Jay (Thurston) Powell (III) essentially said today that the economy is back to normal and The Fed has to get policy back to normal.