“We want to address what we do when ICE comes to our community,” Multicultural BRIDGE CEO Gwendolyn VanSant, who helped draft the 2017 policy, explained. “What are the other threats out there to our safety besides ICE? How do we balance not obstructing justice while keeping our community safe?"
However, as I’ve noted, due to the COVID-19 crisis, forecasting fundamentals is nearly impossible. When you don’t have access to fundamentals, you use technical analysis.
The Federal Reserve’s and the government’s massive and quick actions should stabilize what has been an economy in freefall, but we won’t escape a recession.
We humans like a narrative, a story we can relate to, because it helps us make sense of things, and that makes us feel more comfortable. The fact that the stock market was up about 19% over the previous four months, based on very little improving fundamentals, set us up for a tumble.
The market has been prodded higher by monetary stimulus, and the strong suggestion by the Fed to keep rates lower for longer has given the U.S. economy the potential to stave off a recession for all of 2020.
My concern is that the Fed will begin to gain comfort in the functioning of short-term interest rates, then decide to reduce the balance sheet just before a shock coincides with less liquidity and super-high stock valuations.
The U.S. produces about 13 million barrels per day and consumes 21 million, so higher oil prices could depress economic growth. But I’m not worried about that yet.
Not that we can ever rely on one indicator, but those historical instances of outperformance suggest that we haven’t yet seen too much of a good thing.
