Justin Lehart
Appearances
WSJ What’s News
Trump’s Economic Messaging Spooks CEOs. Why Are They Keeping Quiet?
They're not going to be cutting until June, investors don't think. And the danger is they may not even cut then. It really depends on how the data progresses in the months ahead, both for inflation and then for the economy at large. It's comforting to see sort of that headline. But once you dig in, it's not as happy as you might have thought.
WSJ What’s News
Trump’s Economic Messaging Spooks CEOs. Why Are They Keeping Quiet?
Not yet. Most of the tariffs didn't go into effect until this month. We had some new ones out today, steel and aluminum. So obviously those aren't affecting anything. So it's sort of a wait and see when it comes to that.
WSJ What’s News
Trump’s Economic Messaging Spooks CEOs. Why Are They Keeping Quiet?
Core inflation is sort of a measure of the trend of inflation. So the good news is that did cool. The Fed actually follows a different measure of inflation from the Commerce Department. And there was sort of some bad news in the number today. A lot of the decline that year-over-year core reading was due to a drop in the airline prices. So the expectations on the Fed –
WSJ What’s News
Goods From Canada, Mexico Still Exposed to U.S. Tariffs, Despite Pause
Not at this point. We might see weakness in the months ahead. Most economists expect to see that. This month, the Fed can leave rates on hold as widely expected to. If you see deterioration in the job market, that could lead to a cut. There is a complication, of course, with tariffs expected to raise prices. You could get inflation going one way, jobs going the other way.
WSJ What’s News
Goods From Canada, Mexico Still Exposed to U.S. Tariffs, Despite Pause
That puts the Fed in a very tough spot.
WSJ What’s News
Goods From Canada, Mexico Still Exposed to U.S. Tariffs, Despite Pause
The first thing that stood out was we saw a decline in federal government jobs. We saw a decline of 10,000. And so economists don't think that the layoffs that we saw last month have really registered just because of when the Labor Department collects the data for the report. Those layoffs really hadn't happened yet. However, there was a hiring freeze.
WSJ What’s News
Goods From Canada, Mexico Still Exposed to U.S. Tariffs, Despite Pause
So it does suggest that the hiring freeze that went into effect when Trump came into office, that may have led to increased attrition. And so that's sort of the leading edge of some of the government job cuts that we expect to see.