Yellen Offers Subtle Change To Inflation, Job Market Outlook [ECON NOT SO HOT AFTER ALL...]

Investors Business Daily ^ | June 22, 2016 | BLOOMBERG NEWS

[expat_panama]

By offering a subtle change to her outlook from less than a week ago, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen pushed the prospect of additional interest rate increases further into the future.

The head of the central bank said she and her colleagues were on watch for whether, rather than when, the U.S. economy would show clear signs of improvement, acknowledging the possibility that growth would be slow to pick up.

"Proceeding cautiously in raising the federal funds rate will allow us to keep the monetary support to economic growth in place while we assess whether growth is returning to a moderate pace, whether the labor market will strengthen further, and...

...Just six days ago, Yellen said a cautious approach to interest-rate hikes "will allow us to verify" that growth, jobs and inflation are improving...

...Yellen said the odds of a U.S. recession were low. She also said the central bank stood ready to act if needed in the event U.K. voters decide later this week to leave the EU, causing financial-market turmoil.

"We will closely monitor what the economic consequences will be and are prepared to act in light of that assessment," she said....

...Overall, Yellen's message was one of continued caution and uncertainty.

"The FOMC continues to anticipate that economic conditions will improve further and that the economy will evolve in a manner that will warrant only gradual increases in the federal funds rate," she said, reiterating language from the committee's June 15 statement.

Based on prices of federal funds futures contracts after Yellen's testimony on Tuesday, investors saw only an 10% chance of a rate hike when Fed policy makers next meet, on July 26-27.

Yellen is scheduled to appear before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday.

[Fhios]

I watch her and all I can think of is Drupity Draw from the Bugs Bunny hour.

[cp124]

I thought it was the greatest economy in the history of mankind. You know, the summer of recovery part VII.

[expat_panama]

Happy Mid-week and if this is a bull market it's a limp one.  Stock's major indexes just nudged up a quarter % in weak trade and IBD still rates this 'market under pressure'.  Precios metals are also taking a breather w/ gold-silver at $1,265.60-$17.26.

Futures traders are mixed/upbeat, the heat map has stocks +0.65% and metals +0.33%.

The bean counters are finally showing up to work:

7:00 AM MBA Mortgage Index
9:00 AM FHFA Housing Price Index
10:00 AM Existing Home Sales
10:30 AM Crude Inventories
 

While we're waiting for the market to pick a direction:

Brexit Is the UK Version of the Trump Phenomenon - Annie Lowrey, NYM
How to Join the Top 1% Income Club - Paul Katzeff, Investor's Business Daily
Today's Tax Code Is Failing the American People - Demian Brady, RCM
We Owe It To the U.S. To Impeach IRS Commissioner - Jim Jordan, USAT
Get Ready for Another Surpise: Trump Bows Out - Doug Kass, RealMoney
The Moody's Report Clinton's Using to Attack Trump - Niraj Chokshi, NYT

[Flick Lives]

The Fed has painted themselves into a corner with cheap money propping up the economy. If there is a further economic downturn, they’ve got nothing left as a countermeasure.

[wastoute]

What is the problem? Libtard progressives have been trying to create a utopia where no one has to work for one hundred years. We are halfway there! Unicorns! Rainbows! /s

[kearnyirish2]

There has been no turn-around here in NJ, and none of the cheap stunts worked. We’ve transitioned from a bustling economy to a welfare/workfare (government employees) economy, and the private sector is still leaving the state or shuttering their doors.

Nobody believes the propaganda anymore; the Jersey shore, which anchors the economy in the southern part of the state, still hasn’t recovered from Sandy because most people have no more discretionary dollars. The closing of casinos made that abundantly clear; the delays in rebuilding confirm it. In the northern part of the state, the NYC metro area job losses in the financial sector have dealt a death blow to many areas; those high-paying jobs haven’t been replaced and won’t be coming back...

[Original Lurker]

What a bunch of BS and spin.
She couldn’t speak truth if it was on her teleprompter.

Hey, Janet! I have a swell idea.
Why don’t you and your fellow clowns just add a few more floors to your house of cards.

Sound good?

[HomerBohn]

I believe that today’s extreme dilemma has been caused and programmed by the unaccountable FED.

Yellen comes across as a weasel and typifies the liberal females running this circus.

[Ken H]

Get ready for negative interest rates. After that doesn’t work, then...?

[bert]

bottom line, there is nothing she can do to favorably alter the status quo

she will monitor Brixit but can do nothing regardless of the way it turns out

being powerless, all she can do is make meaningless announcements

[expat_panama]

...all she can do is make meaningless announcements...

imho what she could do is be honest and make it clear she's just doing monetary policy --which the Fed does pretty well-- but then she'd have to dump all that "I run the economy" cr@p...

[expat_panama]

...dilemma has been caused and programmed by the unaccountable FED...

That's what we're hearing from the left and their defenders, who imho are the real culprits

[Starboard]

She gives incompetence a bad name.

[Starboard]

being powerless, all she can do is make meaningless announcements

************

Meaningless announcements are not really the problem per se. Its the mixed signals and her complete lack of credibility that have the markets confused.

[Son House]

And we can only guess who would ask questions like...;
http://in.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-yellen-idINKCN0Z71TA

Yellen was questioned less about those long-run economic issues and more about the immediate economic and political concerns of panel members: why agricultural prices were so low, why there were so many white men in charge of the Fed’s regional reserve banks, and why there was so much income inequality.