“I’ve got a message for your friend Jim Cramer. The Fed cannot permanently raise stock prices. And to have him cheerleading for lower rates 24 hours a day is, I think, unsavory.”
—James Bullard, St. Louis Federal Reserve President
Watch these two video clips:
Clip #1 is a 41-second video clip of James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve, on CNBC where he gives Jim Cramer a good spanking for being too much of a stock market cheerleader.
Clip #2 is live CNBC coverage of the FOMC’s announcement to leave interest rates unchanged. In particular, listen to the cheering in the trading pit in the background.
When I first got into this business, the guys in the trading pits didn’t care which way the stock market moved, because they were professional traders and nimble enough to make money no matter what direction the stock market moved.
Today, those traders have become cheerleaders who think the Federal Reserve exists to help them make money, which is why Bullard’s criticism is so accurate. Despite Wall Street’s caterwauling, it is not the Fed’s job to prop up stock prices.
Those trend-following knuckleheads on Wall Street don’t realize it (yet), but the stock market will fall without the Fed’s help because corporate America is starting to really struggle.
Falling Sales: The analytical crowd on Wall Street is more wrong than right when it comes to revising the direction: increasing sales or shrinking sales.
Over the last six months, only 37% of publicly traded companies increased their revenue forecasts. 37% may sound like a lot, but it is the smallest number of companies since 2009 and almost as bad as the depths of the dot-com bust in 2001.
Median sales growth estimates for the next 12 months are currently just 4% compared to the historical growth rate of 7%.
Falling Profits: We see the same shrinking trend in positive earnings estimate revisions, which have dropped to historically low levels.
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