City A.M. TV: Daily Market Snapshot (video)
Fed Chair Jerome Powell was on Capitol Hill yesterday, for the second day of his semi-annual testimony.
Markets, once again, responded well to his comments as he reinforced, and even added to, his already dovish tone with statements like: “[it] could take more than three years to achieve our inflation goal” and a reiteration that “US economy still has a great deal of slack”.
All of that added to the upside momentum of the cyclical-reflationary areas of the market and reinforced our theme from yesterday that this is a “market of two halves”. Big cap tech, the former leadership of the global market, has largely gone sideways since September highs last year – reflation trades have been making dramatic gains in recent weeks/since the US election.
Key events today include speeches from other Fed Governors. Bullard, George and the NY Fed’s Williams are all making speeches today (following on from Powell and Clarida earlier this week). Various US macro data is also due out including the second estimate of US GDP, durable goods orders (January) and pending home sales (January data) as well as the regular weekly jobless claims.