May 3, 2005

Delayed Reaction

So the Fed accidentally forgot to mention that longer-term inflation expectations remain well contained (original here, new here). That revision appears to be responsible for the jump in TLT and QQQQ into the close. It also weakened the dollar a bit.

Housing stocks could end up the big winner as they didn't like the original statement while the mining stocks anticipated the dollar weakness pretty well. The mining stocks have been sold off hard lately so the rally might not have had much to do with the news.

I thought the original statement fit my morning thesis alright but the new one obviously fits better.

I imagine the statement change will make for a lot of chatter tomorrow. To me the two statements have the same meaning but I guess that is because I see the growth slowdown (lower oil, copper, and steel prices) relieving inflation pressures. I almost went on a rampage this AM about the silliness the Fed locks itself into trying to use language to convey future probabilities to the markets. Given the concerns they have about guiding the market it would be a lot easier just to publish a table of future rate moves and expected probabilities.

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