Dow was off 50, decliners over advancers 3-2 & NAZ dropped 211. The MLP index went up 1+ to the 181s & the REIT index went up 2+ to 480. Junk bond funds drifted lower & Treasuries continued to be sold. Oil rose 1+ to the 78s & gold sank another 19 to 1786.
AMJ (Alerian MLP index tracking fund)
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Jerome Powell pledged to use the Federal Reserve's full arsenal to prevent faster inflation from becoming more permanent after Pres Biden renominated him to another 4 years at the helm of the central bank. Powell committed to doing "everything within
my power" to uphold the Fed's dual mandates of stable prices & full
employment. "We
know that high inflation takes a toll on families, especially those
less able to meet the higher cost of essentials like food housing and
transportation," he said. "We'll use our tools to support economy and
labor market and prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched." Powell's comments come after the gov reported that inflation
jumped to a 31-year high in Oct, driven by a surge in consumer
prices for everything from gasoline to meat to used cars. The inflation
burst has driven fresh criticism of the White House, as well as the
Federal Reserve, for the massive monetary & fiscal stimulus pumped
into the economy. Still,
Powell has maintained that the price spike has been driven by "supply
and demand imbalances, bottlenecks, and a burst of inflation" that were
caused by the "unprecedented reopening of the economy, along with the
continuing effects of the pandemic." He has previously said that as the
economy opens up & supply-chain disruptions dissipate, the inflation
jump will abate. Fed officials began withdrawing support for the
economy this month, announcing in early Nov that they would reduce
the $120B in Treasury bond & mortgage-backed security purchases
by $15B a month – a timeline that would conclude at the end of
Jun. Powell has previously said the Fed will finish tapering the asset
purchases before hiking interest rates from the current range of
near-zero.
Powell pledges to use Fed's arsenal to prevent entrenched inflation after renomination
Pres Biden said the Dept of Energy will release 50M barrels of oil held in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as Americans pay more for gas now than they have in years. China, India, Japan the Republic of Korea & the UK will likewise tap their reserves in a coordinated effort to drive down prices. Of the 50M barrels, 32M will be released but eventually returned to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the next few years, the White House said. The remaining 18M barrels are part of a sale that Congress has already authorized; the White House said it was accelerating the release of that sale. "The President stands ready to take additional action, if needed, and is prepared to use his full authorities working in coordination with the rest of the world to maintain adequate supply as we exit the pandemic," the White House added. Biden's pressure on 14-nation OPEC & Russia to pump more supply into the global market has so far had little effect. The administration has blamed higher prices in part on the effects of the economy recovering & restarting from the COVID-19 pandemic. It has also singled out energy companies for alleged anti-competitive behavior. Biden last week asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether "illegal conduct" is driving up prices at the pump for Americans.
Biden’s energy crisis escalates with new move to tap into backup oil supply
Anyone who received a Covid vaccine in the earliest stages of the rollout should register for their booster shots because “there’s probably more infection happening among the vaccinated population” than the US is currently monitoring. The effectiveness of Covid vaccines is proven to diminish over time & Gottlieb said breakthrough infections are likely to occur in individuals almost a year removed from becoming fully immunized. But boosters offer an “almost immediate” effect of restoring the antibody protection offered by vaccines to their original levels, the former Food & Drug Administration commissioner noted. “At this point I think we need to accept that there’s a lot of breakthrough infections happening, particularly people who are out a significant portion of time from their original vaccination,” Gottlieb said. “There’s probably more infection happening among the vaccinated population, more spread happening in that population, the unboosted portion of that population, than what we’re picking up because we’re just not systematically tracking this.” “There’s going to be retrospective studies that identify this, but we’re not doing a good job of tracking this in real time. And this is the argument for people to go out and get boosters,” Gottlieb continued. He urged vaccinated Americans to get boosted before gathering for Thanksgiving, advising that those who receive an extra dose in the days ahead could still “have substantially more protection” in time for the holiday & called on parents to bring unvaccinated kids for their shots before the holidays as well, adding that children gain a greater shield against Covid from their first dose than adults. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention cleared the way on Fri for all US adults inoculated to get boosted at least 6 months after receiving their 2nd shot. Gottlieb's comments come as the US reports a rise in Covid cases following weeks of declines & a nearly 3-week plateau that started in late Oct & saw cases level off at 70-75K per day. The country's 7-day new case average reached 92K on Sun, up 16% from a week ago, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Gottlieb says breakthrough Covid infections more common than people realize due to weak monitoring
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