December 7, 2018 – The continued volatility in equity markets along with several other market signals have whipsawed the expectations for another Fed rate hike at their final meeting of the year on December 19. The probability of that hike as measured by fixed income traders in the Fed Funds Futures market has in recent weeks been as high as 80%, but as recently as this past Tuesday, December 4, when the S&P 500 fell 3.
The Wilmington Trust/M&T Bank family joins the nation in mourning the loss of the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush.President Bush guided the nation through a period of sweeping global change—and is most notably remembered for bringing a peaceful end to the Cold War, marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Fed Chair Powell’s speech at the Economic Club of New York on November 28 brings to mind “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” the age-old English Christmas carol that seems to be ubiquitous on the radio and in stores around this time of year. After Powell’s notably hawkish Oct 3 comments about rates being “a long way from neutral”—precipitating a sharp market selloff from which the market has not yet fully recovered—his latest comments took a more dovish tone.
