Midday Market Commentary For 03-31-2014
The averages have traded more or less sideways throughout the morning session. The small caps are still trading above one percent while the large caps have lost a bit of their morning luster as the volume continues to fall.
Strange how the volume can drop off, yet the prices continue to rise – maybe the HFT algo computers at work?
MarketWatch reported, “Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen said [today] that the recovery still feels like a recession to many Americans, which is why the central bank will keep its “extraordinary” support for the economy for “some time to come.”
In a speech to a Chicago community reinvestment conference, Yellen also provided evidence why there’s still slack in the jobs market, and weighed in on the hot issue of why the participation rate is so low.
The speech may come as a bit newsier than the market expected. Yellen expanded on the reasons she believes there are significant more people willing and capable to filling a job than there are jobs for them.
Yellen also provided three real-life examples of people impacted by the jobs crisis, and emphasized that “although we work through financial markets, our goal is to help Main Street, not Wall Street.”
Read More . . .
Yellen signals that job market will need Fed’s continued low-rate policies ‘for some time’
WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen made clear Monday that she thinks the still-subpar U.S. job market will continue to need the help of low interest rates “for some time.”
Yellen’s remarks signaled that even after the Fed phases out its monthly bond purchases later this year, it has no plans to raise a key short-term rate anytime soon.
The bond purchases have been intended to keep long-term loan rates low. Her remarks sent a reassuring message to investors, many of whom had grown anxious that the Fed might raise short-term rates by mid-2015.
Their concerns were stirred last month when Yellen suggested that the Fed could start raising short-term rates six months after it halts its bond purchases, which most economists expect by year’s end.
A short-term rate increase would elevate borrowing costs and could hurt stock prices.
