As the whole world expected, the Fed raised its benchmark rate by .25% today and signaled that there’s another coming in December and 3 more next year. Their commentary was very upbeat and, to my surprise, stayed completely out of the political fray; making no mention of tariff risks.
I don’t suspect, however, that the press will avoid the trade topic in the followup news conference. Those close to the Fed — per the video below — report that officials are indeed taking notice.
Here’s a snip from Bloomberg’s post-Fed coverage; the two featured economists echo our bullish view of current conditions as well as the longer-term concerns we’ve been expressing herein:
Once playing, click the icon in the lower right corner for full screen. Focus should occur after a few seconds; if not, click the wheel to the left of the YouTube icon to adjust:
P.s. It’s worth noting that while the Dow, the S&P and especially the Nasdaq are rallying on the news, bonds are also higher on the session (yields falling), and financials are trading lower. The action in bonds and financials suggest that for the moment traders are either bearish (or neutral) on inflation, and/or are somewhat cautious on the longer-term interest rate/economic trajectory.