After 17 straight quarter point rate hikes going back to June 2004 the Fed paused on Tuesday leaving the federal funds rate at 5.25% (from 1% back in June of 2004). In this post I want to try and explain…
The Wall Street Journal ran a noteworthy article on Monday (subscription required) citing evidence that middle income consumers are slowing down their spending in the face of high gas prices and a slowing housing market: … Ms. Liebmann [president of…
The Wall Street Journal today published an editorial, “The House the Fed Built” (subscription required), echoing the interpretation of recent Fed history I posted a couple weeks ago: This is the housing market the Federal Reserve built. That is to say,…
After the bell on Wednesday women’s retailer Chico’s FAS (NYSE: CHS) warned that August same store sales are showing a decline of about 3% and that it sees dismal same store sales for its third quarter, according to the Wall…
Stephen Roach, Chief Economist at Morgan Stanley, had some noteworthy things to say about the bursting of the housing bubble and its effects on the US and global economies in his most recent two commentaries at Morgan Stanley’s Global Economic…
A few weeks after each Fed meeting, the minutes for that meeting are released. The minutes are not an actual transcript of what was said but a shamelessly doctored summary. As I tried to explain a couple weeks ago the…