In this week's Off The Cuff podcast, Chris and Axel Merk discuss:
- Dissecting Last Week's FOMC Meeting
- Powell definitely seems different from his predecessors
- Why The Fed May Not Worry About Stock Prices
- All it really cares about are functioning credit markets
- How Sick Is Europe?
- Very, but it can linger a long time
- The Prospects For Gold
- Well-poised to outperform other assets this year
In the wake of last week's FMOC meeting, the first one for new Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, our site's central banking expert Axel returns to the podcast to share his assessment of the banking world's newest sheriff. Axel believes, as a lawyer (unlike his academic predecessors), Powell is fairly unconcerned with economic theory or asset prices. What he cares most about is regulation and the continued functioning of markets. So as long as credit — the lifeblood of the global economy — is flowing, he may not care much where prices end up:
What's far more relevant is that as we've had this surge in volatility of late, it's very different than when we had a similar surge in early 2016. We're not seeing access to credit being cut off.
In early 2016, for example, the oil companies suddenly didn't get access to credit anymore. That's something that the Fed cares about. So, for the longest time in the post financial crisis world, the stock market moving higher was extremely correlated with how access to credit was flowing.
by lemonyellowschwin