Friday Fedapalooza – 8 Fed Speakers in One Day + Draghi!
by phil - August 22nd, 2014 7:44 am
Hang on to your hats!
Janet Yellen speaks at 10 am, EST and she's scheduled to discuss her "Labor Dashboard" and, from that, the pontiffs will then attempt to read the tea leaves of Future Fed action. She'll likely note that the Labor Market is generally improving but that there is no immediate reason to raise rates. The definition of immediate will be much debated.
If that does not confuse us enough, we will hear from 7 of the Fed Dwarves as well including Williams, Lockhart, Plosser and Bullard. Draghi takes the stage at 2pm, EST. In case Yellen's empty promises don't do the trick, Draghi is sure to have even emptier ones – whatever it takes to end the week on a positive note!
Still, we're playing the day bearish (we added bear plays in yesterday's Live Member Chat and we're short /YM below 17,000 along with other Futures) as it's hard to imagine what Yellen and company can possibly say that they haven't already said. Unlimited amounts of FREE MONEY forever is already priced into market expectations – anything less will be a severe disappointment. Any firm mention of ending QE in the next 12 months can send the markets down sharply. As "clarified" by Goldman Sachs:
With opinions mixed as to whether or not Jackson Hole will be the forum for Yellen to say something new, many are trying to figure out if it is a buy the rumor and then buy more after the fact event, a buy the rumor sell the fact event, or a do nothing with the rumors and then buy the fact if the USD is actually rallying after the fact event.
According to Zero Hedge, only "Full Doveish" statements are likely to lift the markets at this point. Those would be for Yellen to:
1) Argue that the
Thrilling Thursday – Will Jackson Hole Give us S&P 2,000?
by phil - August 21st, 2014 6:01 am
I could take today off.
Why? Because I already wrote this article last month, on a Thursday, when the S&P was at 1,988 and topped out at 1,991, which was $199.06 on SPY and, as you can see from Dave Fry's chart, SPY topped out at $199.16 yesterday (before plunging back to $198.90 on strong volume into the close).
Will this time be different? I certainly hope so because last time, we plunged about 5%, back to 1,904 over the next 10 sessions and it's taken us another 10 to claw our way back for another attempt at an all-time high.
In our Live Member Chat this morning, we shorted the run-up in the Futures at Dow 16,990 (/YM), S&P 1,985 (/ES), Nasdaq 4,045 (/NQ) and Russell 1,155 (/TF) because, as I said to our Members:
I'm sorry but I simply can't reconcile this news with what's going on in the markets so I'm going to continue to lose money hedging to make sure we keep what we have. The alternative is going to cash but there is simply no way I can endorse getting more bullish on this market at this point.
One major difference this time is we DON'T have money flowing out of SPY (as much), as we did last month and we DO have the Fed's Jackson Hole conference tomorrow, which looks to Global Investors like a Santa Claus convention with Yellen, Draghi, Carney and Kuroda sitting under the spruce trees with gigantic bags of FREE MONEY – and that's why traders are as giddy as kids before Christmas this week.
But, Virginia, is there really a Santa Claus, or are the bulls hopes and dreams about to be crushed by cruel economic realities they have, so far, been avoiding like the plague (or Ebola)? Realities like China's horrific PMI this morning, that dropped from 51.7 to 50.3 (barely positive) and France's PMI, which is back in heavy contraction at 46.5 this morning. Retail Sales…
Helicopter Ben Bernanke Says Everything Is Going To Be Okay
by ilene - August 28th, 2010 3:56 am
Helicopter Ben Bernanke Says Everything Is Going To Be Okay
Courtesy of Michael Snyder at Economic Collapse
Don’t worry everybody. Federal Reserve Chairman "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke says that the U.S. economy is going to be just fine, and that if it does slip up somehow the Federal Reserve is ready to rush in to the rescue. That was essentially Bernanke’s message to an annual gathering of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Friday. Bernanke insisted that even though the Federal Reserve has already cut interest rates to historic lows it still has plenty of tools that could be used to stimulate the U.S. economy if necessary.
Well, considering Bernanke’s track record, the "don’t worry, be happy" mantra is just not going to cut it this time. After all, if Bernanke and his team were such intellectual powerhouses the "surprise" financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 would not have caught them with their pants down. The truth is that just before the "greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression" Bernanke was telling everyone that the economy was just fine. So are we going to let him fool us again?
But Bernanke insists that this time is different. This time the Federal Reserve really has got a handle on things. During his remarks at Jackson Hole, Bernanke said that the Fed will adopt "unconventional measures if it proves necessary, especially if the outlook were to deteriorate significantly."
Unconventional measures?
Could that be a thinly veiled way of saying that Helicopter Ben and his pals will do as much "quantitative easing" as they feel is necessary to keep the economy moving forward?…