In this week's Off The Cuff podcast, Chris and Axel Merk discuss:
- Rate Hike!
- Implications of last week's Fed announcement
- Why Are Stocks Still Partying?
- Shouldn't a rate hike spook investors?
- The Trump Effect
- What to expect economically from the new president
- Cash, Gold & ???
- What to hold going into 2017
Well, it finally happened. After threatening a year ago to hike rates 4 times in 2016, the Fed squeaked in a single buzzer-beating hike last week. The move surprised few, as the predicted odds of the hike among market followers were 100%. Yet the markets still managed to shrug this off and move higher (typically, a rise in rates is seen as 'applying brakes' to the economy, and tends to cause investors to feel less confident in future earnings growth).
Here to talk about the implications of the recent hike, the probabiliy of more to come in 2017, and the shellacking the precious metals have been subject to, is Axel Merk:
The market currently is pricing in that we’ll get a lot more real growth. Whereas, my belief is 80% of what we’ll get is probably inflation and 20% is going to be more real growth. But we see some dramatic shifts in the market and by the way, in both of these scenarios it might be worthwhile to short bonds.
by kugscheese