After years of listening to Bernanke and then Janet Yellen, it is no surprise that some have finally snapped, as Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ’s Chris Rupkey appears to have done in his post-Yellen, post-mortem.
Breaking economy news. If you were looking for a signal that a Fed rate hike was imminent, you would be hard-pressed to find any urgency to respond with a Fed rate hike on March 15 in Fed Chair Yellen’s Chicago speech today.
“Likely. indeed, what does that mean? Likely today means nothing about what they do tomorrow. At least she said the future pace of rate hikes would not be as slow as 2015 and 2016.
Whew, that’s a relief. We thought the Fed would only hike one time this year like they did in 2015 and then again in 2016.
The speech reads to us as more of the same policy: the painful drip, drip, drip of the Fed’s water torturing the markets by failing to move rates up at a consistent and measured pace.
Not on a preset course indeed. Rates will certainly be on a preset course after Yellen finishes her last day in office on February 3, 2018.
And for a just as brief, if perhaps even more concise assessment of Yellen’s rambling central planning, here is Axel Merk’s takeaway:
My takeaway from Yellen: rates will rise at a faster pace than in 2016; the new neutral rate is lower – for now – all normal in 2018
— Axel Merk (@AxelMerk) March 3, 2017
Another way to interpret Yellen: nothing has played out the way we wanted to, but we are still here. Let’s pretend it will all be just fine
— Axel Merk (@AxelMerk) March 3, 2017
via http://ift.tt/2mVb15x Tyler Durden