Today with bated breath, the financial markets are waiting on the FOMC statement for any hints of a potential rate hike in 2015. Many economists are still expecting a hike in September or October but at Runnymede, we remain highly skeptical that the Fed will raise rates in 2015. Like we have been saying since March, the data dependent Fed just doesn't have the numbers to justify their first rate hike. Janet Yellen and the Fed target 2% inflation and sorry we aren't anywhere near that number. She should be more worried about deflation than inflation at this point.
Financial weather: Central bankers creating clear skies
In 2008, the brokers and bankers made a huge mess in the subprime mortgage markets and caused the deepest recession in decades. The finanical crisis cost the tax payers trillions of dollars to bail out the failed financial firms and to restart the nation’s economic growth engine. The message during the market recovery to Wall Street from the central bank and the government has been “don’t mess with the financial markets to cause another market crash.” The media and many pundits haven't got the message and are still writing very frequently about the impending market crash. With the recent news on Greece, the media went all out to scare people but we wrote that investors shouldn't be surprised given Greece's history of debt problems. The S&P 500 shrugged off the negative news and barely declined at all, a pullback of just 3%. Looking at the trend, you’ll notice that the S&P 500 has been trading sideways at 2080 plus or minus a few points in a narrow range since November 2014.
Is there value in the Chinese stock market or is it a dangerous bubble?
The last couple of weeks have been dominated by two topics: Greece and China. Last week we tackled what a Greek default means to your investment portfolio. This week we give our insight on the Chinese market which has tumbled in the last month. At Runnymede, we want to give our readers a different perspective than the alarmist headlines from other news sources. Unfortunately with internet news, they are paid on clicks so it's reliant on attention grabbing headlines, not necessarily the reality. We don't simply rehash what the mainstream news reports on. We look deeper beneath the surface to help you make informed investment decisions.
IMF urges Fed to delay interest rate hike until 2016
The International Monetary Fund urged the Federal Reserve to wait until the first half of 2016 to start raising short-term interest rates because the U.S. economy remains subpar. This is an unprecedented event as I can't recall a time that the IMF has ever tried to influence Federal Reserve policy. The IMF predicted the economy will grow 2.4% this year, down from its April forecast of 3.1% and the second time it cut growth targets this year.
The invisible hand of central bankers and government intervention
The financial markets are guided by supply and demand conditions for stocks and bonds. Historically, their fluctuations have been heavily influenced by business conditions and economic cycles. During the past 12-15 months something new and different has dominated the marketplace. Unorthodox governmental forces are the engine that drives the financial markets which seem totally insensitive to any negative economic developments.
Central bankers are giving out easy money
“”I want the easy
Easy money
Easy money
I want the good times
Oh, I never had
I want the easy
Easy money
I want the good life
I want it bad”” — Billy Joel