with brian beaulieu

WEEKLY FED WATCH

This week on Fed Watch, ITR Economics Consulting Partner Alan Beaulieu highlights the recent November jobs report data and provides some key advice for business leaders heading into 2025. What are our expectations for the Federal Reserve’s upcoming meeting later this month? Tune in to find out!

pixel graphic

Key Episode Takeaways

  • 0:09 – Ongoing US-China tensions not immediate Fed concerns
  • 0:53 – November jobs report analysis
  • 1:40 – Federal Reserve December meeting outlook
  • 2:19 – Advice for business leaders when planning for 2025
divider

The below transcript is a literal translation of the podcast audio that has been machine generated by Notta.

Hello, everyone. I’m Alan Beaulieu from ITR Economics. I’m filling in for my brother, Brian, this week for this edition of Fed Watch. Interesting things going on in the news, but it doesn’t have a lot to do with Fed Watch. I mean, you’re following the China things with our imposing more restrictions on technology going to China and China responding with stopping needed material and minerals from coming to the U.S. that have to do with semiconductors and EV batteries and such. You might think that’s kind of what’s the Fed thinking. They’re not thinking anything about that. That has to do with the future. And its impact on the future is yet to be known. We’ll know more as we go along. The one thing that does come to mind that happened recently is the job number that came out for November. Two hundred seventy seven thousand jobs were added. And a couple of the headlines say it was a surprise number, strong number, et cetera. I thought you’d just like to kind of have it in context. The rates of change are still in phase C, slower growth. It is a record high number of people working. And the increase from October to November was OK, slightly milder than average. So certainly not impressive. Not one of those numbers that you went, wow, where did all that come from? It was pretty much as the economy has been going. It’s going OK, but not great. So what does that mean? It means that when we get to the December Fed meeting, it’s still likely to see some minor decline in Fed funds rate. Go with the consensus on that one. I think there’s enough sluggishness. Retail sales are not impressive, although they’re not bad. I think they’ll see a little more nudging, but it won’t be enough to really change the world. It’s not going to be enough to all of a sudden cause mortgage rates to go down. And it things that Brian talked about on November 22nd, the last Fed Watch, if you want to rewatch that one, he covered that completely. It’s just one of those things where it’ll move a little, it’ll get a round of applause and then life will go on. So I would encourage you to take it in stride and say to yourself, “I still need to get ready for my future in 2025 based upon my leading indicators, my rates of change, and my relationship to the economy at large.” For some, that’ll mean it’ll be a good year. For others, it’ll mean it’ll be an off year. So I can’t give you generic advice. I can just tell you that what happens in December with the Fed is not likely to impact your 2025. We may get more in the future, but in the near term, Just smile, say Merry Christmas and off we go. Thank you very much. This is Alan saying goodbye and thank you for joining me on Fed Watch.