What we’re reading (1/11)
“Fed Served With DOJ Subpoenas, Powell Vows To Stand Firm” (Bloomberg). “Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the US central bank had been served grand jury subpoenas from the Justice Department threatening a criminal indictment, a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on the Fed.”
“Wall Street Is Making Bullish Bets On The Economy” (Wall Street Journal). “Call it the glass half-full market. In recent weeks, government data has been mixed, showing both disappointing job gains and robust economic growth. But U.S. investors have been focusing on the positive side of things, piling into bets that suggest that they have strong confidence that the economy will keep powering forward.”
“‘Inflation Will Surprise To The Downside In 2026’: Why Wall Street Expects Juiced Economy, Stock Gains This Year” (Yahoo! Finance). “Investors may be "having a cake and eating it" in 2026, with Wall Street strategists predicting stock market gains driven by Fed rate cuts, tax incentives, and lower-than-expected inflation.”
“The Landlords Are Not The Problem” (New York Times). “Landlords are not the cause of the nation’s housing crisis, and any plan that reduces investment in housing is only going to make matters worse. The crisis is a simple problem with a complicated solution. The problem is that the United States does not have enough housing. The hard part is building more. It is certainly easier, and perhaps better politics, to talk about barring investors, or imposing rent controls, or kicking immigrants out of the country, but none of that is going to do the trick. The way to make housing more affordable is to build more housing.”
“Credit Growth Accelerating In The US And Europe” (Torsten Slok). “Data for bank lending points to a gradual recovery in the US and Europe[.]”
