The core consumer price index eked out a year-over-year increase of just 1.7% in June, the slowest in two years. Stripping out shelter costs, core inflation grew just 0.6%, the most sluggish rate since 2004. Personal-consumption expenditures are growing at a 1.4% pace, shy of the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Stable inflation lets businesses hike […]
Archives for July 2017
Dovish Yellen Spurs Markets to Soar
U.S. stocks climbed to another record close on Friday, driven by continued prospects of low interest rates and by strong second-quarter corporate earnings reports, particularly from the banks. The main force behind the rally was the dovish performance by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen in Congress on Wednesday and Thursday, when she reiterated that rate […]
Stocks Threatened by Looming End of Low Rates
Last week Ray Dalio, head of the Bridgewater mega-hedge funds, declared that the era in which central banks drove interest rates to zero and created boatloads of liquidity is coming to an end. Their activity pushed up asset prices and drove nominal interest rates below nominal growth rates, which, he writes, “created beautiful deleveragings.” In […]