Today on the show, Director of Global Macro Jurrien Timmer discusses the Fed’s latest policy announcement, the highs of the Japanese market, and other macro trends. The Fed’s recent decision to hold interest rates where they are was a bit of a surprise for the market. Jurrien says although the Fed maintains there will be three expected cuts, this new situation creates a timing issue. He says generally, the Fed doesn’t like to cut or hike rates around elections because it doesn’t want to be seen as meddling with the election cycle.  In that sense Jurrien says, a March cut, a June cut and then walking away for a while would have been the best solution, but inflation numbers prevented a March cut from happening. Jurrien believes that the Fed will cut rates in June, and maybe in December, leaving the time around the presidential election untouched. Jurrien also speaks at length of a bullish broadening of the market stating the cap weighted index is continuing to make all-time highs. The highs are also joined now by the S&P 500 equal weighted index. He points out 81 percent of the stocks in the S&P 500 are above their 200-day moving average. This means that they are in a long-term uptrend. Jurrien says the market is broadening in the upwards direction, which is the best thing you can hope for if you’re an active investor. As always, Jurrien shares his charts so please go to @TimmerFidelity on Twitter to follow along.

Recorded on March 25th, 2024.

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