You knew pushback was coming. With the S&P up 9.1% in July, Federal Reserve officials are pushing back on the two main market narratives: the Fed’s “pivot” and “we’re in a recession.” Neil Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, suggested in an interview with The New York Times on Friday that the market had gotten ahead in anticipation that the Fed would end its rate hike program, saying the The Fed was “united in our determination to bring inflation down to 2%…and we are nowhere near that.” For the past two weeks, the bulls have been pushing the “pivotal” narrative: that rate hikes are all front-loaded, that the Fed will start tapering increases by the end of the year, that the Fed will taper its net rates in 2023, and now is the time to go ahead and buy growth stocks. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell tried to push back against that narrative during his press conference last week, where he noted that the Fed should still raise rates in 2023, not lower them. But bulls don’t want to listen. There’s also a pullback on the inflation narrative Atlanta Fed Chairman Raphael Bostic told the Wall Street Journal “I don’t think we’re in a recession,” Powell said. Bostic noted the strong job growth, “which suggests to me there’s a lot of momentum in the economy.” It may not matter. Kashkari made another appearance over the weekend, this time on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, where he said, “We’re going to do everything we can to avoid a recession, but we’re committed to bring inflation down, and we are going to do what we have to do,” he said. “We are a long way from having an economy back to 2% inflation. And that’s where we need to get to.” Others just discourage everyone from using the “R” word, suggesting that this current set of economic circumstances is, well, just a little weird.” is probably the weirdest economy we’ve ever seen or will see again in our lifetime,” Ben Carlson of Ritholtz Wealth Management said over the weekend. “Covid took the economy down and then we had all these stimulants that gave us high sugar and now comes the hangover. We just don’t know if it’s the type of hangover that just requires greasy food to recover or if it’s a Las Vegas hangover where you feel like crap for three days. We’ll see. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester and St. Louis Fed President James Bullard all make public appearances on Tuesday. July was an active month for traders Preliminary fund flow data for ETFs indicates strong inflows into bond funds of all types, including government (iShares US Treasury Bond ETF (GOVT)), corporate (iShares Investment Grade ETF (LQD)), and even high yield (iShares Broad High Yield Corporate (USHY)). Dividend ETFs remain popular as a defensive way to play the market (Invesco High Dividend Low Volatility (SPHD)). Learn more about streams ETF in July on ETF Edge this Monday at 1 p.m., when our guests will be Ben Slavin, Global Head of ETFs at BNY Mellon, and Andrew McOrmond, Managing Director of WallachBeth Capital.
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