by Jeffrey P. Snider
Alhambra Partners
As usual, everyone is focused on the wrong part of the FOMC statement. There is already a lot being made about the one sentence inserted as “hawkish” sentiment that puts the economy, supposedly, back on its fruitful, “full employment” track. In a clear sigh of relief undoubtedly in relation to the scary May payroll report, the July 2016 FOMC statement confidently announces:
Near-term risks to the economic outlook have diminished.
Why anyone would give it any weight at all is a mystery. The FOMC has been making the same declaration intermittently for almost two years; only to have to retract it as “global turmoil” randomly, in their view, intrudes.