Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ On Friday

Busy helping my kid move to a new apartment in Motgomery County, so I did not do this yesterday.

That being said, initial unemployment claims rose to 232,000, 2,000 more than forecast, and continuing claims rose by 4,000 to 1.863 million.

Also, the the Chicago Fed National Activity index fell , which all seems to point to a downturn.

Also, remember when I mentioned that the BLS was revising its non-farm employment numbers, and they could be down by as much as 1 million, well they revised the total down 800,000, yet another indicator of a slowing economy.

The real news Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, stated that, the time has come for interest rate cuts at the annual central banker conclave at Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

He did not give specifics as to the timing, because, of course he didn't, central bankers are never that transparent.

“The time has come” for the US Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, its chairman declared, hailing progress in the battle to bring down inflation from its highest level in a generation.

With price growth now on a “sustainable” path back to normal levels, Jerome Powell signaled that the central bank was ready to start reducing rates from next month.

The US labor market – which rapidly recovered from the damage inflicted during the early months of the Covid-19 crisis, adding millions of jobs – now faces greater “downside risks”, he acknowledged. Unemployment ticked up last month.

But Powell expressed confidence that there was “good reason” to believe inflation could retreat further without damaging the world’s largest economy – if the Fed now acts.

“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Powell told an annual symposium for central bankers at Jackson Hole in Wyoming on Friday. “The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.”

It appears that I war wrong on my prediction, I predicted that they would not lower rates until after the election, but it appears that I was wrong.