Stock Market Bulls Charge Again On “Rate Hikes Don’t Matter” – Ep. 170

* It really is amazing how short memories are on Wall Street
* This seems exactly like December when everybody was convinced that a rate hike wouldn't matter because the economy was improving and the market can handle higher rates
* And the stock market rallied right up until the Fed actually raised rates, and then it rallied a little bit, and then it rolled over and we had the worst decline to begin a year in the history of the stock market
* Well flash forward to the Fed now saying that they are going to raise rates in June - or at least everybody believing that the Fed is going to raise rates in June and all of a sudden we are having this huge stock market
* We had a huge up day yesterday on the idea that the economy is improving and the Fed is going to raise rates
* The market is going up on the assumption that the economy can handle higher rates based on the economic data, which is another reason why the Fed might feel comfortable raising rates because the market is not selling off
* So the market is giving the Fed the go-ahead to notch rates up another .25
* That was exactly the attitude prior to the last rate hike
* The Fed make the mistake of raising rates in spite of weak data
* As a matter of fact, if you go back to the minutes of the FOMC meeting, which is what ignited this whole Fed rate hike narrative, the Fed said it all depends on the data
* If the economy continues to improve, if the labor market continues to improve, then we'll hike rates
* But the reality is that the data tells the opposite story
* Ever since the last Fed meeting, the economic data, on balance, has been weaker than expected - not stronger than expected
* Including all the data that has come out this week
* But, hey - nobody cares - because the Fed says everything is great, so we can ignore the data because if they think the economy is great, it must be great
* Forget about the fact that they have a horrible track record - the economy must be great!

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