A weekend piece in the Wall Street Journal from noted Fed whisperer Nick Timiraos
(gated)
In brief:
- Surprising strength in hiring and consumer spending last month, together with signs that demand for autos and housing might be stabilizing after a decline, now have some economists pointing to a ... an economic growth upturn.
- “A ‘no-landing’ scenario is a present-day reality,” ... said Neil Dutta, an economist at the research firm Renaissance Macro... said he sees “a huge reluctance to admit the obvious, which is that the economy is reaccelerating, full stop.”
- A growth pickup could lead the Fed to raise rates more than it would do otherwise to slow inflation to its 2% goal over the next few years.
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Background to this is that back in June of 2022 Timiraos dropped the bombshell during the Federal Reserve blackout period:
WSJ Fedwatcher Nick Timiraos is just out with a new report previewing the FOMC.
- "A string of troubling inflation reports in recent days is likely to lead Federal Reserve officials to consider surprising markets with a larger-than-expected 0.75-percentage-point interest rate increase at their meeting this week," he writes.
- The report is speculation but it taps into the old-style Fed leaks.
That post, as was Timiraos, was spot-on. Timiraos has thus been crowned the new Hilsenrath (you may remember his role during the Bernanke Fed as a provider of Fed-insider info).
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Powell to hike even further?
