Yellen Walks Back Inflation Comments, Futures Rally

"The Fed is boxed into a corner. Powell knows it. Yellen knows it. But give them props – they are putting on quite a show trying to assure us everything is fine to keep the markets calm. It reminds me a little bit of the orchestra playing as the Titanic sinks." - Michael Maharrey, SchiffGold.com.

US & European Futures are broadly up on Wednesday as of 9AM, with Asia showing signs of light weakness. The Dow is up 0.32% to 34,126.50, with the S&P up 0.47% to 4,177.38, the Nasdaq up 0.78%, and the Russell up 0.60% to 2,258. In Europe, the Dax is up 1.10% to 15,118, the CAC 40 up 0.37% to 6,286, and the FTSE up 0.74% to 6,977. In Asia, the Nikkei 225 is down 0.33%, the Hang Seng is down 0.15%, the CSI 300 is down 0.82% to 5,109.80, and the Nifty 50 is essentially flat at 14,712.50.

We saw relentless selling (particularly in growth) yesterday morning, but drifted higher all afternoon on buy-backs, and perpetual sell-side euphoria. Janet Yellen's remarks about rising rates (eventually) to cool an overheating economy, was the obvious catalyst for the sell off. However, later on in the day, she felt the need to walk back her simple, honest, and basic monetary policy comments. Essentially she said inflation won't be a big problem (repeating Powells mantra), and said she's not suggesting or forecasting rate hikes. Wow. Is the game is to ignore inflation until there's civil unrest about prices? These policy makers are straight up criminals imo.

According to ZeroHedge, the Treasury was set to borrow $95 Billion in Q2, but that figure is now a whopping $463 Billion. In Q3, the estimated borrowing is $821 Billion. In other words, we're looking at exponential printing of GDP to keep up the appearance of a functioning economy. Let's see what they project for Q4. Maybe $1.2 Trillion? And, what about next year? I swear, it feels like we have children with no experience running the economy into the ground. Welcome to MMT hell, folks.

Commodities continue to rise as inflation take hold, with Lumber up 4.5% to new high's at 1,481.50. Oil continues it's slow march higher with WTI up 1.31% to 66.47, and Brent up 1.23% to 69.73.

Vix is down around 5% on the day and sitting at 18.53, just below our intraday support level of 18.80. We tested the 21 level resistance yesterday and saw a massive rejection as the afternoon melt up ensued. The Dollar (DXY) is essentially flat and trading at 91.28, near yesterday's highs. Let's see how the day unfolds.

* I am/ we are currently holding positions in UVXY, HUV, HQD, QID.
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