It’s official…for a second time around. At least that’s what the CNBC headline said: Fed Chair Nominee Jerome Powell Wins Approval (Again) of Senate Banking Committee. It would seem the esteemed Committee is challenged by expiration dates, which could give one pause as it pertains to dairy products and such. Though the members voted on December 5th to approve Powell’s nomination, it would seem the expiry date came and went on December 31st.
[REITs]For the record, Senator Elizabeth Warren was the only committee member to vote against Powell’s nomination…again. The full Senate now has all of 16 days to confirm Powell before Janet Yellen’s term ends on February 3rd.
At the risk of stating the obvious, time could be of the essence. While it’s true that the ink has yet to dry on the acclamatory, congratulatory and laudatory approbations of the Yellen mini-era, we might not want to risk even one day without a warm body chairing the Federal Reserve Board.
According to one veteran hedge fund manager, today resembles neither 1987 or 1999. What does this say of what’s to come, of the markets’ fate? One thing is for certain. If Jay Powell is confirmed, he’s going to find out.
To say that a den of cynics lays in wait, hoping for Powell’s failure is kind. Consider the very first Twitter reply to the posting of a Business Insider article about the world’s nine wealthiest men having a combined net worth that exceeds that of the poorest four billion.
I tweeted out the following: “I’ll repeat this until I’m blue in the face. Inequality will morph from a socioeconomic to a macroeconomic issue and boomerang back with a vengeance. And I’m a proud card-carrying capitalist if there ever was one.”
The first reply: “End the Fed and all other Central Banks.”
The public, it would seem, is taking no prisoners. The gig is up that trillions upon trillions of dollars of quantitative easing have accomplished one thing – they’ve made the rich richer. Let’s be clear, that’s a gross oversimplification. But the Pavlovian and vitriolic reaction to any mention of inequality nevertheless induces howls from the masses who lay the blame for the yawning gap that’s opened up between the proverbial have’s and have not’s squarely at central bankers’ doorsteps.
Meanwhile, despite my own fears that the cryptocurrency craze could infect the FANG stocks if Bitcoin did something like halve, all seems to be fine in the major indices. In fact, as Bleakley Advisory Group’s Peter Boockvar points out, if we manage another three days without a 5% correction in the S&P 500, history will have been made, as in the longest winning streak of all time. Is it any wonder the Goldman Sachs Financial Conditions Index is at the lowest since 2000?
And yet, the long end of the yield curve seems incapable of responding with anything more than a Heisman to the insistent laundry list of reasons long-maturity Treasury yields should be rising – climbing deficits leading to greater supply, razor-thin risk premiums, producer prices bubbling over. At last check, the 10-year yield registered 2.56% to the 2-year’s 2.04%. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that 52-basis-point differential is within a hair of the flattest curve we’ve seen for the better part of a decade.
Add them up – a grassroots campaign calling for your failure, risky assets gone wild, a bond market that’s double-daring you to hike into building inflationary pressures, oh, and, just for good measure – no historic precedent. How would you like to be Jay Powell?
The good news is that Powell understands every single aspect of what’s to come. His CV suggested as much, but it wasn’t until I dove into the freshly-released 2012 FOMC transcripts that I was sure. Especially after reading his words, I reiterate my contention that Powell is no clone of any of his successors. With that, I invite you to enjoy the fruits of my painstaking parsing of the transcripts in this week’s newsletter, POWELL ON POWELL: A Deep Dive into 2012’s FOMC Transcripts.
A personal aside. I was able to catch up with my best friends from New York over the long weekend in beautiful La Jolla. It had been over three years. Let’s just say that was too long a stretch. Sometimes Facetime just doesn’t cut it. Do yourself a favor before the new year sweeps you away, and schedule a time to catch up face-to-face. You’ll thank me for it.
Hoping you too enjoyed your long weekend and wishing you well,
Danielle
