US Federal Reserve

Having confessed to the fact that Fed "forecasts" are as useless as any other guess (and not commitments), NY Fed's Bill Dudley admitted this morning that the Fed-inspired student-loan bubble is a debt overhang that both inhibits home ownership and is a headwind to economic growth.

“If you look at the Summary of Economic Projections, it’s a forecast” and not a commitment, New York Fed President William Dudley says in New York at press conference on trends in household borrowing and student debt.

With the S&P having traded as high as 2,400 last month, which is also JPM's year end price target, and having dipped a modest 3% since then peak to trought, some traders were worried if this is finally the start of the inevitable correction that has evaded stocks for so long. Not according to JPM, though. Recall that several weeks ago, JPM's Marko Kolanovic called for an imminent bounce in volatility following the March quad-witching.

DISCLAIMER: this essay was written in the spirit of April Fool's Day.

Authored by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The basic idea is that giving each household, regardless of wealth or income, $1 million each will spur consumption so mightily that inflation will skyrocket.

Richard Breslow, former fund manager who currently writes for Bloomberg, starts of the week with a recap of how traders are reacting to the so-called key pain trades, and refuse to accept a shift in sentiment when it comes to the "dovish yet hawkish" Fed or the "hawkish yet dovish" ECB.

The Pain Trades Are Giving People Headaches

There does come a point when we just can’t seem to resist playing with our heads. It’s bad enough when others try to do it to you. But psyching oneself out is no way to make a living. Especially when you trade for a living.

Authored by Wolf Richter via WolfStreet.com,

Those who lost out on the Fed’s “wealth effect.”

Here’s a mystery: Has this “wealth-effect” economy that the Fed so beautifully engineered since the Financial Crisis gotten a lot riskier, scarier, and uglier in some profound ways for lower-income Americans, those making $30,000 or less a year?

One of the questions that Gallup posed was this: