Drew Matus Quotes (55 Quotes)


    We expect the recent jump in retail gasoline prices to push down confidence. Optimistic views around the labor market will likely offset some of the gasoline sticker shock.

    Once a person is appointed, they are basically independent. If you're president, you want someone who would temper their criticism of you.

    The data today suggests that there was only a temporary pause in this sector and that we can expect more growth going forward.

    These numbers are weak across the board. But of course, that's good for bonds. It just adds to the case for the Fed leaving rates low for a very long time to come.

    People are going to take advantage of the lower interest rates to buy big ticket items like automobiles. People are buying what's cheap. The impact occurs more in the luxury spending areas.


    There seems to be a fight about every nomination that Bush puts up. But even if it was a 51-49 vote, it's not like they can recall him.

    From his comments, it is clear that the US Fed will keep raising rates, hoping to bring the housing market to a very soft landing.

    This raises possibility of a pass through into core inflation. While companies can absorb some of the pipeline pressures, the way to do so is productivity gains that we're not seeing anymore.

    When you have MA activity, strategic decisions are being made, and that's a development that only occurs when people are very confident and looking towards the future. That will help the economy, and we will have hiring.

    The overall number does suggest modest amounts of strength, but nothing necessarily that gets me too excited.

    His speeches are well thought out. After Greenspan, he's the one whose comments are most closely watched by the markets.

    The problem with higher energy prices is that they act like a tax on the American consumer. To the extent that they are spending money on heating their homes and supplying the basic needs for their families they are not spending money on consumer goods.

    With this kind of income growth, the consumer has room to run. This tells us we don't need to worry about the first quarter.

    The important thing, though, (it that) it's a January number. So we ended the fourth quarter on 1.1 GDP growth, but now, starting the next new quarter, we're going to have this surge in housing activity. And it's going to add to GDP estimates for the first quarter.

    This is as aggressive as I've ever seen for the Fed in terms of making clear that they're raising rates and that they're not near being done.

    This level of inflation, combined with falling unemployment and rising capacity utilization, is a recipe for continued preventative rate hikes.

    It's the inflation story, it's there and it's got implications going forward.

    Growth is strong. Inflation is making them a little nervous, even though they reiterate that core inflation and long-term inflation expectations are contained.

    People are trying to figure out how serious (the report) Homeland Security doesn't have anything on its Web site.

    The market liked what it didn't see. The market got itself worked up about the Fed possibly being more aggressive about inflation and when that didn't appear in the minutes, investors then focused on a relatively benign view of inflation.

    There have been historical precedents where people have spent well in excess of what they've earned from foreign trading partners for extended periods of time and nothing has happened. The big wild card is you have a reserve currency (such as the dollar), how much extra room does that give you. That's the 100,000 question, or the 100 million question, or the 1 trillion question.

    The big wild card becomes what the Fed does about it. That's why the bond market is rallying -- rather than concentrate on the inflationary aspects of higher oil prices, the market thinks the Fed will focus on the growth aspects.

    The factory orders report shows that the first two months of the fourth quarter were not especially a great time for manufacturers.

    The current focus going into the employment report this week has much more to do with habit than anything based in reality.

    Growth is picking up in the labor market. People are returning to work, working longer hours and making more money. This shows that the economy is healthy. Fears of a soft patch were overblown.

    Nobody's going to default in the U.S. Treasury market. The biggest concern I have is that not everybody understands that, and some people understand it better than others.

    It was exactly as the market expected, with them commenting on both the overall good news and the modest areas of weakness left in the economy. The Fed is on hold until August.

    I don't think this is going to draw much in the way of the Fed's attention. It was delayed for some time, and nobody from the Fed was complaining. They don't focus on it.

    Treasury has claimed it didn't want to issue anything beyond 10-years because that tied their hands. Now the market's thinking that if a 20-year is suddenly OK, then why not bring back the 30-year

    The labor market is hot and getting hotter, and that is one of the reasons the Fed continues to raise rates.

    Of course it's great for inflation. But, really, the market doesn't care about the numbers because they're not the payrolls report.

    The prices received number tells us that basically some firms are gaining pricing power. What that really means is there could be inflation in the outlook.

    People are breathing a sigh of relief and bought a few bonds and stocks. Everyone plays, everyone wins.

    People are focusing on the impact of higher energy prices on the consumer instead of focusing on the impact of higher energy prices on inflation.

    With income growth strong and the labor market set to tighten through 2006, the overall growth outlook should remain robust.

    Ferguson is very operationally oriented. I think that's a role the Fed needs, but I'm not sure that's what administration is looking to put into the top spot.

    I think these minutes ratify the middle view in the markets, not that the Fed's done and not that the Fed's going to 6 percent.

    If we get more inflationary data, that could bring people back to their senses. Just because the Fed talks about inflation in a benign way one meeting doesn't mean that feeling will be pervasive at the next meeting.

    The Fed keeps trying to walk the middle course, and unfortunately that gives ammunition to people who think the Fed should be raising rates more and ammunition to people who think the Fed should be done.

    Don Kohn is the closest thing to a Greenspan clone that modern science has produced.

    We've got some good news in this report but it's likely to be short-lived. We can expect the large trade deficits we've come to know to continue for the rest of the year.

    There's no sign of inflation, and the labor market is still weak. There's still plenty of room from the Fed's point of view.

    We're right where they want us to be -- between 2 and 2.5 percent increases in the core CPI. But last year there was more inflation than they were anticipating at the beginning of the year, and the concern you hear being expressed is that they don't want that to happen again.

    Growth was lower than expectations because of inventories -- which will need to be rebuilt -- while moderating employment costs will make it less costly for firms to hire additional workers. The still-strong level of wage and salary should buoy consumption.

    We continue to expect the Fed to raise rates three more times, raising the fed funds rate to 4.50 percent by the end of January.

    We have had an extraordinary period of job growth the last four months. The bond market is always worried about higher growth, and the equity market is concerned that the Fed might be more likely to overshoot, and take rates too high.

    We had a lot of companies in that period that were not making money, hiring a lot of people who were not doing anything for their pay.

    I would have thought people would have changed their earnings expectations given that higher rates were expected to slow growth. The expectation all along was that because of productivity growth, companies would be able to keep boosting their profit margins, even if they weren't producing as much in goods and services, but that's obviously is not the case.

    Higher oil increasingly will creep into the indicators. Today, it biased the trade gap higher and pushed up import prices and also impeded the consumer sentiment number.

    We expect a balanced speech that reaffirms that a March hike is likely, but that subsequent moves are data-dependent.


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