US Federal Reserve

With a December rate-hike baked into the cake (odds as close to 100% as possible), the hotter-than-expected PPI print has sparked notable outperformance in the long-end (amid Fed-driven slowdown fears) sending the yield curve to new cycle flats - flattest since 2007...

The last two times the yield curve was this flat, the US economy was in recession...

As a reminder, it took The Fed driving rates up to 5.25% before financial conditions finally snapped tighter...

Authored by David Stockman via The Daily Reckoning,

103 years ago, in 1914, the Federal Reserve opened-up for business as the carnage in northern France was getting under way.

And it brought to a close the prior magnificent half-century era of liberal internationalism and honest gold-backed money.

The Great War was nothing short of a calamity, especially for the 20 million combatants and civilians who perished for no reason discernible in any fair reading of history, or even unfair one.

Authored by Chris Hamilton via Econimica blog,

I hope this article brings forward important questions about the Federal Reserves role in the US and I openly admit this is by no means a comprehensive article...it simply attempts to begin a broader dialogue about the financial and economic impacts of allowing the Federal Reserve to direct America's economy.

Speaking in at a conference in Tokyo, the head of the Philly Fed, Patrick Harker said that he has penciled in a further rate hike by the Fed at its December meeting on 12-13 December 2017. However, his use of the word “lightly” suggested that there may be a degree of wavering on his part. According to Reuters.

A Federal Reserve official said on Monday he expects to back an interest rate hike next month despite caution over low-inflation, as U.S. central bank policy needs to be positioned to deal with future economic shocks.

 

As increasingly more analysts and Fed-watchers have suggested in recent months, the one catalyst that could send the market into a tailspin is for the Fed to get what it has so long wanted: a sudden spike in inflation. From Albert Edwards (who looks at record U.S.