Stocks got off to a slow start at the open Wednesday after President Donald Trump once again weighed in on the Federal Reserve by calling for rate cuts on Twitter.
In two Tweets sent Wednesday morning, Trump pushed for negative interest rates and called Fed members “Boneheads”.
....The USA should always be paying the the lowest rate. No Inflation! It is only the naïveté of Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve that doesn’t allow us to do what other countries are already doing. A once in a lifetime opportunity that we are missing because of “Boneheads.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 11, 2019
Trump’s comments come less than a week ahead of the Fed’s September meeting when many analysts expect the body to cut rates for the second time this year. In July, rates were trimmed to 2.00-2.25%.
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On Friday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the body would continue working to maintain the current economic expansion and that politics played no role in the central bank’s decisions, according to a Reuters report.
Underpinning the back-and-forth is the growing fear of a looming recession. The yield curve, which measures the yields of US Treasuries, inverted earlier this year, which is considered predictive of a recession.
Additionally, according to a Washington Post report from August, Trump stands to make millions of dollars annually if the Fed lowers rates, due to loans outstanding on his hotels and resorts.
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow him on Twitter @andrew_kessel