Roundup
Inflation decreased for the eleventh month in a row, as CPI data was released. Gas prices have decreased despite Saudi Arabia’s best efforts and food prices have also cooled. Overall, consumer prices only increased by 4% compared to one year earlier. This is in contrast to the 9% peak achieved last June. On a month-by-month basis, prices only increased by 0.1% which is stellar. Now the question becomes, what is the Fed going to do? According to reports from some insiders, the Fed was extremely pleased with this new data but still would like to beat down core inflation. Core inflation is a better measure of actual inflation, as it removes volatile pricing like energy or food. This core inflation has decreased at a slower rate making it very likely that the Fed will skip lowering rates this month, and wait until next month. I don’t think they will, I believe that the Fed will continue raising rates this month and next month. Obviously, it would be best if you trust the actual journalists, but my gut feeling tells me that a rate hike is likely.
On another note, JPMorgan will be paying $290 million dollars (wowzers) to a collection of victims in the Epstein case. These victims are a collection of (likely) women abused when they were underage on his island. The victims had just asked a judge to reopen Jamie Dimon’s deposition, and JPMorgan panicked dropping 300 million dollars to stop further inquiry. This immediately tells me that the deposition must be extremely incriminating. This settlement with the victims does not clear up the suit that the US Virgin Islands is pursuing against JPMorgan. Just a quick recap btw, JPMorgan is being sued because they facilitated Epstein and allowed him to do his thing. This is a fact, but the contention arises over whether they knew of Epstein’s actions and allowed them or if they were unaware. In my opinion, they 100000000% knew what was going on. Too many people in finance were being invited onto his island for some top-level executives to not have at least an inkling. JPMorgan is likely going to settle with the US Virgin Islands for an even larger sum and they will avoid further litigation. Seeing as they made about 12 billion dollars per month in 2022, I think they’ll be fine. Although, it will be really interesting to see if the victims or the Virgin Islands pursue any other companies that had connections to Epstein.
This isn’t really finance-related, but it has the potential to be. Ukraine began its counter-offensive against Russia. It will be difficult to measure their progress, and I would not get my hopes up. The Russians are firmly entrenched and will be difficult to remove, but I would not bet against Ukranian ferocity or bet on Russian intelligence. If Ukraine can’t make gains (which would stink) it is likely that they will be forced to the negotiating table by their allies. I think that future is unlikely, but it will, unfortunately, be years before the Russians will be removed from Ukraine, if at all. Just keep an eye on the Ukranian offensive and on the Russian reaction. I would not trust the Russians to behave rationally if things do not go their way. Just keep tabs on territorial gains.
