Adventures In Finance: A Real Vision Podcast

St. Louis Federal Reserve President Jim Bullard was the only member of the Federal Open Market Committee to dissent from the decision to hike interest rates by 25 basis points. Bullard wanted 50 basis points, and he’d like to see a fed funds rate of 3% by the end of 2022, not the 1.75% of the central bank’s current forecast. Bullard and Fed Chair Jerome Powell do agree that the economy can handle monetary tightening. And the stock market, with the S&P 500 on the way to its best week since November 2020, seems to accept the Fed’s outlook on growth. But the bond market sees something different – that is, a slowdown. The Treasury yield curve continues to flatten, and the 10-year yield fell below the five-year rate for the first time since March 2020. Meanwhile, war in Eastern Europe continues to sow dysfunction, most obviously in commodity markets. Jim Bianco, president and founder of Bianco Research, joins Real Vision’s Ash Bennington to talk about the Fed, inflation and growth, China and the Russia-Ukraine con