His commentary came out 1.5 weeks ago and I’ve just gotten around to reading it properly. Here are two passages worth your time and a link to the rest of it.

The market usually begins to buckle when the Federal Reserve is aggressively tightening. We know that the new Fed Chairman Jerome Powell wants to “normalize” interest rates which would mean bringing the Fed funds rate up to 2.75%, about double where we are now. He is likely to do that slowly, beginning in March with a quarter-point hike and he may not do even that if the decline in equities continues. The Fed is unlikely to move rates higher abruptly because there are too many cases in the past where the consequences of sharp increases have created dire circumstances for the economy. Powell was selected by President Donald Trump because he was basically in the dovish Janet Yellen model and not likely to deviate significantly from her policies. Trump wanted to have his own person in the job, but he opted against the extreme alternatives.

Some observers believe a 10% correction is enough, at least for a while. Valuations have come down to reasonable levels, the market is no longer excessively overbought and intermediate-term interest rates are showing signs of stabilizing. The Crowd Sentiment indicator has moved from close to 80 down to 61, putting it in “neutral” territory where we could see a short term rally. It would be nice if investors had to endure only two weeks of pain before the market headed higher again.

 

Source: Blackstone

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