Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome “Jay” Powell, recently sent mysterious shock waves into financial markets with comments that suggested that Fed rate cuts might come sooner than expected. Stock and bond markets took this as a good sign. They were already in a Santa Claus rally and broke out to new highs for the year. The interest rate on ten-year government bonds, which had already fallen by almost 1 percent since October, threatened to break support and go even lower. Financial journalists were all smiling with exuberance talking about the “Fed’s pivot.” However, so far, this is just talk of a Fed pivot, not ... (full story)