Stuart Hoffman
Stuart Hoffman
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Clearly the Fed's main eye is on inflation, ... They are more worried about inflation because they view the setback to economic growth as temporary.
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If you take into account the revisions, the average for the last three months are still very strong. It's consistent with the housing starts number. People are still active in home buying. This decline in January is probably a month dip. It's a head-fake.
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He's saying the economy is healthy. Inflation is OK for now, but it could become a problem, so we're not done raising rates yet.
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Inflation, it's been a clean sweep for July. We learned earlier this month wages were unchanged, yesterday producer prices fell again, and this morning you're right on the money, relatively benign consumer price inflation report. No problem.
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He agrees that another ... rate hike at the March 28 (meeting) will be needed.
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Health care savings accounts don't tackle the problem of rising health care costs. This is not an attempt to rein in the cost of health care. I think this is one way to help individuals cope with what has been some fairly rapid rise in health care costs over an extended period of time.
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Stocks and bonds rallied at first, but now have hemmed down. Stocks are coming off a superb day yesterday, so that may be a little profit taking.
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This is in spite of gasoline rebounding 10 to 15 cents in January. This also squares with the jobless claims data.
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It was a good report right through. As you look through the report there is a noticeable absence of inflation on a broad basis. The numbers, if anything, are steady to lower on inflation and show that it just isn't at all a problem for the economy or the Fed.
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At the same time, many retailers and the automakers have had good June numbers, despite the rise in oil prices (over the last month), ... Overall, there's some relief right now that the economy is indeed strong, but not overheating.
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The first half of the decade has not been good for Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania in the sense of economic growth. But for this year, I believe we have turned the corner.
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The underlying message here is that the Fed is rounding for third and heading for home plate. But they are not finished playing yet.
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These are exactly the kinds of things the Fed likes too see. Signs of a slowing in housing and still-contained inflation are the kinds of numbers that speak to the Fed stopping in May, making that their last rate hike.
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The economy is regaining momentum and will have a very solid first half of the year. We all feel more confident than we did three months ago, when we were still wondering about the impact of the hurricanes.