Fed Watching is Tedium

Fed watching is tedium. The financial world argued and speculated and fixated. When would interest rates start going down again? Whatever leveraging ESP they had, they emitted.

Then, last week, rates were lowered by 50 points. Now a new game of speculation and fixation and argumentation begins.

The Wall Street Journal for the weekend of September 21 presented brief profiles of five Wall Street pros plans for falling rates.

Rob Arnot of research affiliates says international stocks should get attention because they've already had their economic slowdown.

Sara Malik of Nuveen says you want to be up the quality curve and make sure the fundamentals of what you own are such enough to survive a downturn.

Jack Eblin of Crescent believes falling interest rates will see money shift in  the US stock market from tech towards smaller players that are sensitive to borrowing costs. He thinks the cuts will re-orient the glow-bowl flow of capital by weakening the US dollar and boosting international stocks. But the US has an election to be decided before that smoking light goes on, if ever.

For his part, chief editor Baruch Bernard things the term ‘falling rates’ is inapt. Again depending on the election result, the Fed will strive to  hold Wall St at bay as it cheers on a march back to zero. – B.B.