Out of the woods?

Mid-week market update: As President Trump left the hospital and returned to the White House, the message from his doctors was he was doing fine, but he was not "out of the woods". Numerous outside physicians have made the point that COVID-19 is nothing like the flu. Flu symptoms hit the patient and eventually dissipate and go away. COVID-19 patients often have ups and downs in their infection. They may feel fine, but symptoms flare, dissipate, and return. The process can last weeks, even months. Just because Trump reported feels fine now doesn't mean that he won't feel fine by this weekend.

Just like Trump's COVID-19 infection, neither the equity bulls nor bears are out of the woods. Yesterday (Tuesday), Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a speech that it was time to go big on fiscal stimulus:

The expansion is still far from complete. At this early stage, I would argue that the risks of policy intervention are still asymmetric. Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses. Over time, household insolvencies and business bankruptcies would rise, harming the productive capacity of the economy, and holding back wage growth. By contrast, the risks of overdoing it seem, for now, to be smaller. Even if policy actions ultimately prove to be greater than needed, they will not go to waste. The recovery will be stronger and move faster if monetary policy and fiscal policy continue to work side by side to provide support to the economy until it is clearly out of the woods.

The September FOMC minutes indicated a consensus that fiscal support is forthcoming, and the economy could tank without a rescue package.

Indeed, many participants noted that their economic outlook assumed additional fiscal support and that if future fiscal support was significantly smaller or arrived significantly later than they expected, the pace of the recovery could be slower than anticipated.

Trump tanked the market by tweeting that he was calling off the negotiations for a stimulus package. While he did tweet later that he was in favor of a standalone bill for a $1200 stimulus payment, his chief of staff Mark Meadows confirmed today that stimulus bill negotiations are dead.

The full post can be found here.