If you're a bond investor, maybe you should be praying for impeachment after last Friday's November jobs report.
Granted, based on other indicators, including GDP, leading indicators, and others, the economy is not as strong as it was at the beginning of this year. But it’s still in pretty good shape, as witnessed by the 266,000 jobs that were added to the economy last month.
The immediate reaction in the bond market was a sharp drop in prices and a concomitant rise in bond yields. In other words, good economic news is bad for bonds. By the same token, a strong economy pretty much squashes the idea of the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates anytime soon, which is also negative for bond prices. If anything, if this keeps up, the Fed’s next move may be to raise interest rates again, not lower them, which is the prevailing view in the financial markets at the moment.
So that would indicate that the bond investors’ best hope is for the Democrats to be successful in impeaching Trump and as quickly as possible and push the economy in the other direction.
Of course, as some of us might remember from our junior high civics or American government class (do they still teach that in schools?), impeachment is not the same thing as removal from office. President Clinton and President Andrew Johnson were both impeached, but neither was removed from office, having prevailed in the subsequent trial in the Senate. (That’s the part most giddy news stories about the current impeachment drama leave out). But then again, the entire Democrat strategy is really about generating as many headlines as possible with the words “Trump” and “impeachment” close together, as if that’s good enough.
So impeachment isn’t such a great political or electoral strategy. Neither is it a good bond investment strategy.
Let's get back to the jobs reports, which was described variously as a “blowout” or “blockbuster” or words close to that. Continue reading "Good News Is… Good News"
