jerome powell

Hottest new craze to hit markets: bubble investing

Foolegian

Bill O’Brien, Editor

Lombardiletter

The 2000 market crash often referred to as the “dot com bubble” was great for investors exposing their portfolio to the tech industry, realizing very high returns for a time. What happened after is irrelevant.

With financial markets experiencing depressed fixed income yields and spreads, investors have had to get creative when it comes to portfolio strategy and turning a buck during the pandemic. Luckily, some investors have hopped on a new wave that is surely keeping them hype and, at least emotionally, invested in the market. Bubble investing has been around since the inception of supply and demand markets, but never have investors been jumping through hoops for insanely overvalued investments like they have been today.

David Portnoy, Chief Market Strategist at Barstool Sports, or “Stool Presidente,” as his analysts call him, is the pioneer of the portfolio strategy. “Say it you cowards. Stocks only go up. Stocks only go up. Say the words Ron. I am your King,” Portnoy iterates time and time again in his annual research report to clients via Twitter. Sophisticated retail investors were quick to adopt Portnoy’s market strategies, flooding securities with, virtually, no cash flow, like Gamestop (NYSE: GME) and AMC Theatres (NYSE: AMC), realizing massive returns in the process (if one bought early enough, but that part’s irrelevant).

Even Fed Chair Jerome Powell has had a lot to say about asset valuations in markets to reporters after the Fed’s latest Federal Open Market Committee Hearing. “The market’s hot, baby, the market’s RED HOT. Fed’s getting in on this for sure, Gamestop to the moon, diamond hands my friends, DIAMOND HANDS.” Since the hearing, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is valued at approximately $7.72 trillion. Sources at the Fed confirm Powell has been pressuring analysts at the Reserve’s New York trading desks to “get their diamond hands on GME pronto.” 

The Fed’s aggressive buying sprees have prompted some backlash among junior analysts working at the Central Bank. One analyst spoke to Collegian reporters on the condition of anonymity, “I sit at a desk and buy as many junk bonds as I can until the early morning. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep… At this point, I would rather be worked to an early grave by DJ D-Sol at Goldman.”

Cnbc

Powell responded to analysts’ claims of overwork with personal attacks. “Kids these days got no gumption, no spirit. Back in my day, we fueled financial crises 18 hours a day. We didn’t get Peloton bikes as participation awards either. Buncha pansies if you ask me.”

Anyways, what was I writing about again? Oh right, the 2020-21 bubble investing trend (craze). Bubble investing has been a mixed bag depending on who you are. If you’re an ambitious investor with a lot to lose and not a lot of know-how, then chances are this trend is perfect for you. Plus, you’ll be able to tell your friends you’re “in the market” at least for as long as your positions last. The future of investing is looking bright as of April 2021. Whether that bright light is a beautiful sunrise on the horizon or a nuclear bomb exploding in the distance, coming to vaporize all of our highly leveraged market positions, well, I guess that’s up to you to decide. Until next time, as the once-great Ben Affleck said in a famous coming-of-age movie, Good Will Hunting, “the business we have, here-to-for, you can speak to my aforementioned attorney. Good day, gentlemen, and until that day comes, keep your ear to the grindstone.” This is investing.

Powell discusses FOMC meeting, forward-guidance and economic recovery

Business

Michael D’Angelo, Staff

Marketwatch

Pictured above is Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Powell led this week’s FOMC meeting, forward-signaling the Fed’s monetary policy strategy and lending clarification to eager market makers.

Since the Federal Reserve’s inception in 1913, the central bank has made a profound impact on the nation’s commercial banking sector, monetary policy and the world. The Federal Reserve, or the Fed, operates as our nation’s commercial banking regulator, monetary policy interventionist and financial stabilizer. The Fed is made up of 12 member banks which assist an assigned geographic area around the country and help with banking services and compiling data in the area. The Fed’s main goals are price stability, maximum employment and maintaining moderate long-term interest rates. 

The Fed meets eight times a year with members from other area banks known as the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The FOMC consists of 12 members, which come from the Board of Governors of the Fed and Reserve Bank presidents. The FOMC is responsible for managing the country’s money supply.  

The current chairman of the Fed is Jerome Powell. Powell has served in this role since 2018. An alumnus of Princeton and Georgetown, Powell worked shortly in investment banking in his early career and later went on to start working in public service under Former President George H. W. Bush. Since his time at the Fed, Powell has neither been described as either a dove, which is a policymaker interested in low unemployment and low interest rates,  nor a hawk, which is a policymaker more concerned with stifling inflation. Instead, Powell has been described as a major mediator: one to find a consensus in monetary policy and the economy. He has been known to listen to many different members of Congress’ views on the economy. 

The FOMC met live today at 2:30 p.m. to discuss the economy’s recovery. With three vaccines in full swing and a new stimulus package passed, many of the challenges induced by the coronavirus pandemic are seeming smaller, and recovery has been top-of-mind among regulators. As a result, speculators are expected to grow more eager to reenter the market after a tumultuous year.

Many investors are concerned with the recent rise in treasury yields and inflation. Powell has discussed inflation a few weeks ago, and he does not believe inflation to be a major concern. As expected, he reiterated this point during today’s FOMC meeting. The Fed’s Summary of Economic Projections in December estimated GDP to be 4.2 percent, unemployment to be at 5 percent, and core inflation to be at 1.8 percent for 2021. Some believe these estimates rely on optimistic outcomes regarding vaccine rollouts and business reopenings. 

Market conditions indicated investors were not expecting a change in interest rates announced at the meeting, and there was none. Powell made it clear that the Fed would employ ample forward signaling before implementing any drastic, market-moving changes such as a tapering of treasury yields. In a Q&A with reporters, Powell made it clear that there needs to be significant progress made in economic recovery to consider the action. Currently, the federal funds target rate (the rate commercial banks lend to each other) is set from 0 to 0.25 percent. This was set low by the Fed to stimulate credit markets and encourage lending to businesses afflicted by the economic shutdown that occurred last March in response to spiking COVID-19 transmission rates.  As we recover from the pandemic, the economy’s fate will be placed not only in the hands of the FOMC and the Fed but in the average American’s consumer confidence and their ability to spend money. A recovery in consumer confidence followed by an economic recovery will likely prompt the Fed to change course, when that will happen remains an uncertainty.

dangelom2@lasalle.edu

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before Senate Banking Committee

Business

Elizabeth McLaughlin, Staff

Reuters

Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell listens during a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee in December 2020.

On Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 11 a.m. EST, the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, testified before the Senate Banking Committee regarding the central bank’s semi-annual Monetary Policy Report. The Committee’s chair, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) began the session with opening remarks about the current state of economic affairs. Senator Brown made it clear from the beginning that he is in favor of the Fed using any monetary tools it sees fit to manage inflation and unemployment, stating, “most people are not worried about doing too much to get through this pandemic, they’re worried about doing too little.” Further, he recalled remarks from Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, who stated that if the Fed doesn’t do more by way of monetary policy, we risk a “permanent scarring” of our economy and our future.

Ranking member Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) disagreed with Senator Brown, stating, “the last thing we need is a massive multimillion-dollar spending bill.” Senator Toomey was chiefly concerned with inflation and urged Powell to roll back the Fed’s holdings of treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities in order to avoid uncontrollable and unwanted inflation. Senator Toomey stated that most American households are in better financial positions now than they were before the pandemic. He stated that in his opinion, the last two recessions were caused by asset bubbles that burst. In 2001, it was the stock market, in 2008, the mortgage credit market. Additionally, Senator Toomey believes that monetary policy contributed a great deal to the formation of those bubbles. 

He also remarked that there is a link between record amounts of liquidity and unprecedented asset valuations, like those of GameStop and Bitcoin, as of late. Across the board, Senator Toomey stated, there are elevated asset prices and signs of emerging inflation. He asked Powell if he believes there is a link between the liquidity the Fed has been providing and some of these unprecedented asset prices, to which Powell responded, “there is certainly a link.” Despite this, Powell and the Fed plan to continue the bond-buying program “at least at its current pace until we make substantial progress toward our current goals.”

Powell presented his testimony in two parts: a review of the current economic situation and the Fed’s plans for monetary policy moving forward. Powell stated that the sectors most adversely affected by the resurgence of the virus are the weakest. Household spending on services remains low, especially in the hard-hit sectors of leisure and hospitality. However, household spending on goods picked up in January. Moreover, the housing sector has “more than fully recovered from the downturn.” Regarding the labor market, Powell stated that the pace of improvement in the labor market has slowed and the unemployment rate remained elevated at 6.8 percent in January. Participation in the labor market is notably below pre-pandemic levels. 

Moreover, Powell stated that “those least able to shoulder the burden [of the pandemic] have been hardest hit,” citing low wage workers, African Americans, Hispanics and other minority groups as the most affected. During the questioning portion of the hearing, Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) explained the varying unemployment rates by race: in January, the unemployment rate among the black population was 9.2 percent; among Hispanics, 8.6 percent. The unemployment rate among white people was 5.7 percent. Additionally, the Black labor force exit rate increased dramatically while the white labor force exit rate returned to pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that the Black unemployment rate is misleadingly low compared to the white rate. Senator Menendez got Powell to agree that minority families are bearing the brunt of the damage caused by the pandemic, “along with those at the lower end of the income spectrum.”

Regarding inflation, Powell stated that there were large declines in the spring, but consumer prices partially rebounded last year. Powell also stated that as the very low inflation readings from last March and April drop out of the 12-month calculation on inflation, we should expect readings on inflation to move up. This is called the base effect and it should not be a cause for concern. Powell mentioned that overall, inflation remains below the 2 percent long-run objective. He stressed that the 2 percent goal is an average, so periods of lower-than-average inflation should be followed by periods with inflation rates greater than 2 percent.

In his overview of the monetary policy report, Powell emphasized that maximum employment is a broad and inclusive goal, so policy decisions should be informed by an assessment of the shortfalls of employment from its maximum level, rather than deviations from its maximum level. Furthermore, Powell mentioned that actions taken by the Fed in the early months of the pandemic have constrained their main policy tool by the lower bound. In other words, the Fed has been lowering interest rates in unprecedented ways since even before the start of the pandemic, so their ability to use lowering interest rates as a monetary policy tool is weakened.

If lowering interest rates isn’t really much of an option anymore, what will the Fed do? Simply put, the Fed will do what it has been doing throughout the pandemic: increase holdings of securities at least at their current pace. The Fed will closely monitor inflation; Powell stated that “well-anchored inflation expectations will enhance our ability to meet both our employment and inflation goals.” Powell assured Congress that the Fed “will continue to clearly communicate our assessment of progress toward our goals well in advance of any change in the pace of purchases.”

mclaughline7@lasalle.edu