It’s in the 90s where I’m at but the elevation and / or breeze is making it feel positively delightful. Nothing like a morning “hike” with a cool breeze.
The Fed did some hiking of its own today by moving the benchmark range up by 75bps to a 2.25-2.5% target.
Blackstone released its July commentary recently. I found a few sound bytes to be interesting:
We maintain our view that inflation is going to remain persistently elevated, with “sticky” forms of inflation, including shelter pricesand labor costs, potentially hindering a quick return to lower inflation. It may be easy to go from 9% inflation to 5%, but going from 5% to 2% may take longer than many expect.
…despite souring consumer sentiment amid biting inflation levels, consumption has remained steady. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, there is still a significant cushion of excess savings and elevated levels of liquid financial assets on household balance sheets.
Markets are pricing in a terminal rate of 3.5% for this Fed hiking cycle, but the Fed may very well need to raise rates much higher than that. A Fed Funds rate of 5% is a real possibility. For the Fed to feel that it has really licked inflation, the central bank will want to see lower levels with its own eyes.
Plenty of cross currents in markets today that cause volatility, but still remains what I personally believe to be a decent market to invest into – as a good measure of the excess in speculation has left the system and most everyone anticipates a poor economic environment going forward.