The days are bizarre, the weeks are bizarre, and each bit of economic news has me perplexed as to what is truly pushing the markets in one direction or another. The biggest news of the week was..kind of un-news from the Federal Reserve wherein Jerome Powell highlighted nothing?
Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell boosted market sentiment this week by suggesting that any impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on inflation would only be "transitory." The central bank chief also assuaged concerns over growth, calling the economy "strong overall."
The market rallied a bit after the comments from Powell because I suppose everybody was satisfied that the Federal Reserve hasn't learned what transitory means. After economies ground to a halt in 2020 and governments around the world resorted to inflationary spending, Powell repeatedly referred to any and all inflation as transitory until somebody had to tell him that 3+ years of inflation is not transitory.
The reference to Trump induced inflation as transitory could mean one of two things:
- Powell has still not learned the real meaning of the word.
- Powell is tipping his hat to the audience to indicate what really is about to happen: persistent and problematic inflation.
Meanwhile at the White House, those in charge of economic policy continued to impress with their blatant corruption:
On Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared on Fox News and encouraged viewers to buy Tesla stock.
"If you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla," Lutnick said on Jesse Watters' program. "It'll never be this cheap again."
Somehow I had missed this in the churn of the week. It does make me wonder if the end of the week rally for Tesla (TLSA) was because of acolytes of the GOP went to buy TSLA in droves, dip buyers who stepped in, the triple witch effect, or something else entirely like a short squeeze. The attempts to pump Tesla stock from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave continue to disgust. These tactics have also led me to spend more time hunting for opportunities to short TSLA.
Traders betting against Tesla (TSLA) have made $16.2B by shorting its stock over the past three months as the electric vehicle maker’s market value dropped nearly 50%, Business Insider reported this week, citing data from S3 Partners.
This week Cybertrucks were also recalled because the Elmer's glue used to attach some panels began to fail, but the CEO of Tesla seems incapable of taking fundamental problems seriously. Instead it's all humanoid robots and full-self-driving (FSD) smoke and mirrors. Or, I guess trans people?
Elon Musk Suggests Trans People at Fault for Tesla Attacks as Estranged Trans Daughter Calls Him 'Pathetic'
She's got that right.