TOOT, TOOT

Momma always said, "Don't stand in front of a moving train."  Everybody read the Fed the same way I did:  no more normalization this year despite Janet getting the data she has been talking about for a year and a half.  As a result, the DOW jumped over 150 points today bringing it into positive territory for the year for the first time.  I guess I should jump in (if I had any money) but I don't and I won't.  I'll just stand here on the side of the tracks and watch the big ol' choo-choo roll on by trying to figure out what's going on.

Janet did admit that everything is quite so rosy anyplace else in the world which may be a bit of an understatement.  She also was cautious about the U.S. economic outlook to be honest, but the market  has appeared to ignore all of this and decided that the good times are back.  In so doing it has planted the flag firmly on fortress America, discounting the belief of an increasingly integrated world economy and proclaiming that we can go it alone, swimming upstream against the global tide and choosing our unique agenda.  Never stand in front of a train or try to stop a spawning salmon...I hate mixed metaphors.

The dollar of course has gone ker-splat which is good news for the internationals and their earnings.  Oil is way up with WTI closing over $40 dollars today despite what people who claim to know about these things stating that there has been no material change in either supply of demand...except for some 800,000 barrels a day that has apparently gone missing.  I know, me neither.  Gold is way up as well.  A hedge against inflation? Cheaper dollar, cheaper price?  Beats me.

Then again, I could be all wet in my skepticism and things are really about to get good.  If so, YEA!  But I just can't get around the fact that we're in step and the rest of the world is out of step.  Nor can I figure out the pull back on the part of the Fed when there is certainly more reason today in the data presented for a normalization that there was months ago when it embarked upon this journey.  What changed?  A lack of confidence in the data or just plain ol' politics in a Fed that we all recognize as being the most partisan in recent memory to the extent that Janet had to answer a question in her presser as to Lael Brainard's contribution to Hillary Clinton's campaign fund which, if you are interested, is to me more tone-deaf and stupid that nefarious.  But it does have the effect of putting things in perspective.  At least we now have all of the major central banks marching to the same tune. I think I'll get off this macro bus and get on one of the minis in the near future.  Maybe a slow train would be better.  Yeah, that's a good idea.  One of those with cars with see-through roofs where one can enjoy the scenery.  Very calming.  I like the thought.  Toot, Toot.