Yesterday's CPI report came in higher than expected at 3.1% annualized through January, prompting a selloff in stocks and bonds. Stocks were down ~1.5% and bond interest rates climbed ~0.10-20%, concentrated in the 3-5 year range. Overall, I interpret this report as a warning sign

Fed Governor Adriana Kugler gave a video address to the Brookings Institute last week, sharing her thoughts on the outlook. Here are my takeaways: * Kugler struck me as marginally more hawkish than others on the FOMC. She repeated comments and phrases from several of her colleagues, stating that monetary policy

Fed Chair Powell did a lengthy interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday. Here are my takeaways: tl;dr - the Fed isn't going to cut in March, and Powell (like almost every other FOMC voter) will be looking closely at the employment and inflation data to decide when

Thoughts on the upcoming Fed meeting and recent data releases * There won't be any movement on interest rates at tomorrow's Fed meeting--which should be a snoozer--but Friday's jobs data will draw a lot of attention. A strong jobs report pushes the prospect of rate

Fed Governor Waller and Atlanta Fed President Bostic gave speeches on the economic outlook last week. They highlighted similar themes--the positive progress on inflation so far, the uncertainty surrounding economic forecasts, and the conditions under which rate cuts could begin this year. I read Waller to be somewhat more hawkish

New York Fed President John Williams spoke to an economic development group yesterday about the economic outlook. Here are my takeaways: * Williams won't be voting for rate cuts anytime soon. In his view, it won't be appropriate to cut rates until he is "confident that

A new year, a new monetary policy update. A lot of people have been asking me “when” interest rates will return to “normal” levels rather than the “high” levels they are currently at (NB: interest rates are not high right now by historical standards). Everyone seems to think it’s

TL;DR – I believe the Fed will raise rates by 0.25% at the February 1 meeting. However, recent speeches by DC-based officials sound hawkish to me and I think 0.50% is still possible. Market pricing suggests the Fed will hike twice at the next two meetings—25 and

Some of you may know that my old boss from the New York Fed, Lorie Logan, recently became the new president of the Dallas Fed. Logan will be a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the body that sets the U.S. benchmark interest rate, in 2023.