While it is now virtually assured (odds are 95% according to the CME) that the Fed will announce a 25 bps rate hike today following an unprecedented attempt to reprice the Fed Funds market over the past month by Fed speakers - recall that as recently as three weeks ago, nobody expected a March move by the FOMC - what traders and analysts will be focused on today are hints for the future of the Fed's rate hike moves.
While it may not be the very definition of irony, we do find the fact that the Atlanta Fed has just cut its Q1 GDP forecast from 1.2% to 0.9%, a number which if confirmed would be the lowest quarterly print in year, just two hours before the Fed's rate hike quite humorous. As a reminder, the number was as high as 3.4% one and a half months ago.
From the Atlanta Fed:
Latest forecast: 0.9 percent — March 15, 2017
Well, it’s probably a stretch to say the next installment in the Fed’s tightening cycle is finally here. After all, as Bloomberg's Richard Breslow, a former FX trader and fund manager, notes, it was only a couple of weeks ago that this foregone conclusion wasn’t even on the market’s radar.
The abrupt about-face was jarring and out of character in its timing, but I like the lack of overbearing hand-holding.
Authored by Caleb McMillan via Mises.ca,
As if Canadians needed more proof that the country’s real estate is in a bubble, and that this misallocation has spread to other sectors of the economy, the Bank of International Settlements released its latest quarterly confirming what any critical observer can see: binging on debt is rarely a good idea.
Canada’s debt-to-GDP gap is widening and even the central bank of central banks is concerned.
One day after gloating at Bill Ackman over his $4 billion loss on Valeant, Dennis Gartman is back with his latest trade reco which may be worth paying attention to: he says that while he is getting "bullish of Japanese shares", he is offsetting this with an imminent short of markets across the "industrialized" world. To wit: