Is It Still a Bond Market If I Don’t Use Jargon?

And the betting markets say Handsome Kevin is raising rates anyway

At the end of a long — so long! — work week, it’s time to slow down, look back, and figure out what really mattered. And so I sat down with Stacey Vanek Smith for this week’s episode of Off the Clock. Our goal: to figure out what parts of the economic news hurricane surrounding us you should actually be concerned about, what you can safely ignore, and to find those moments where there’s room for a bit of hope.

By our judgment, the biggest stories were:

First, inflation, and its implications for the Fed. You know the headlines: Inflation came in at 3.4 percent, and 2.4 percent if you focus on core inflation. It’s stubbornly high, and a bit worse than Wall Street expected. This was enough for the odds of a rate hike at the next Fed meeting to jump from 72 percent to 86 percent. Or in English: It’s really darn likely.

Bring your popcorn to the next Fed meeting. One possibility is that the Fed raises rates, which puts Kevin Warsh on the President’s naughty list. Expect social media fireworks. The other is that the Fed stays put even as Wall Street expected a raise. That’s likely to lead Wall Street to ask hard questions about who Kevin Warsh really is. Expect fireworks either way.

Second, the bond market. Lotta complexity, hard to understand. So Stacey challenged me. She brought out the jargon jar and dared me to explain the bond market without ever slipping into econo-jargon. I made it through by talking apples as if they were little bonds. You be the judge as to whether that worked.

And, finally, we compete in a battle of chart vs chart, and we’re asking you to judge. Honestly, it’s dad joke versus the cosmos, the cost of living versus the budget deficit, lines on a page versus an artistic rendering. Honestly, I don’t like my chances.

Watch the whole video, or listen in, and you’ll get all the context.

Justin’s chart:

Stacey’s chart: