Wall Street Journal senior writer Jon Hilsenrath took part in “The Claman Countdown” on Wednesday to respond to economic “uncertainty” at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s press briefing.
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JON HILSENRATH: Because I think that’s really the story coming out of this press conference – the market volatility. Summing up everything Jay Powell said, he said, “Look, this recovery isn’t going to look like anything, it didn’t look anything like the recovery last time.” So the plan she did last time after the crisis ’08/09, to be torn up and thrown overboard. The last crisis, they came out, they raised rates very gradually. It took you a long time to do this. They had a very slow settlement of the balance sheet. He says they’re tearing this up and they’re going to have discussions from meeting to meeting.
So the Fed isn’t sure how that will play out, in terms of how fast they need to raise rates, how far they need to raise rates, and what they’ll have to do with the balance sheet. There it is, the volatility index. And because of the Fed’s uncertainty, I think the market is digesting that uncertainty. And I think the watchword that we’re going to have for 2022 is volatility, which is really not good news for market values… I think it’s going to be a volatile year for the market, and that’s what Jay Powell is triggered today.
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