US Federal Reserve

With a 95% implied probability of a rate hike tomorrow, there is little doubt that Janet Yellen will raise rates, although as Goldman previewed two days, there are at least two open issues should make tomorrow's meeting somewhat interesting: First, will Fed officials alter their policy views in response to the increasingly different signals that both sides of the mandate are sending about the urgency of further tightening... and... Second, will the press conference provide some clarity on what the next tightening step following the June hike will be?

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

What I’m about to tell you isn’t some wild conspiracy. Or fake news. It’s raw fact, based on publicly available data from the US Federal Reserve.

This data shows a very simple but concerning trend: banks in the United States are becoming less safe. Again.

And they’re doing it on purpose. Again.

Few people ever give much thought to the safety and security of their bank.

In an otherwise quiet morning as we await Jeff Sessions' testimony, a WSJ article is making the rounds which recounts the interactions between Trump and Janet Yellen - who it turns out were born two months apart in neighboring boroughs of New York City - according to which despite Donald Trump’s fierce criticisms of the Federal Reserve in the final weeks of the 2016 election campaign "the nation’s two most powerful economic-policy players—the president and the leader of the central bank—are "off to a surprisingly smooth start."

For the first time in 3 years, Core Producer Prices have risen at a faster pace than The Fed's mandated 2% target. May PPI (ex food and energy) rose 2.1% year-over-year, the highest since May 2014, as goods prices tumbled (gasoline, motor vehicles, fresh fruit) while services costs (retailer and wholesaler prices, and residential lending) jumped.

May 2014 was the last time that Core PPI (Ex Food and Energy)...

The breakdown shows a notable drop in Energy prices MoM with good prices tumbling as service costs jumping...

Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,