US Federal Reserve

Last weekend, after looking at the latest H.8 statement by the Fed, we noted something concerning: total loans and leases by U.S. commercial banks were rising at an annual pace of about 4.6%, based on weekly Fed data. That is down from a 6.4% pace for all of last year and peak rates of around 8% in mid-2016. This is the slowest pace of debt creation since the spring of 2014. This deceleration has prompted numerous questions about the sustainability of the recovery, and led the WSJ to noted that the slowdown, "is at odds with the idea of a stronger economy and rising sentiment."

Authored by David Stockman via The Daily Reckoning,

During the last 129 months, the Fed has held 86 meetings. On 83 of those occasions it either cut rates or left them unchanged.

So you can perhaps understand why Wednesday’s completely expected (for the last three weeks!) 25 bips left the day traders nonplussed. The Dow rallied over 100 points that day.

Traders understandably believe that this monetary farce can continue indefinitely, and that our Keynesian school marm’s post-meeting presser was evidence that the Fed is still their friend.

We won’t bore you with yet another article about the recent rate hike by the Federal Reserve. This move was widely expected, as the Fed members had been hinting this would happen for several months now. Additionally, the new ‘hints’ about an additional two rate hikes later this year also didn’t surprise the market as we believe this was already priced in. The slight hike in the Federal Funds Rate estimate for 2019 to 3% (from 2.9%) didn’t see to worry the markets as the indices were all sent higher on the back of the FOMC meeting.

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

Authored by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,

I don't talk to my classmates from business school anymore, many of whom went to work in the financial industry.

Why?