If the Fed thinks reading the economic tea leaves has proven to be a tough sport, just wait till they try stock trading as Fed Chair Janet Yellen did last week in her testimony dramatics before Congress.
This band of bank buddies, headed by Bay Ridge’s own Yellen, hasn’t hit its economic forecasts once in more five years. They are predominantly a microphone hungry crew of economists that has been predicting better than 3 percent growth for years.
America is still waiting.
So pardon them, especially Chief Investment Officer Yellen, for choosing to be more enamored with the subtleties and nuances of the stock market than the rigors of the economy.
Oh yes, the economy. It’s hardly been an easy call of late, this part-timers’ economy, which has been whipsawed by Fed policies, massive layoffs and corporate buybacks.
Apparently, though, our new Fed head has a secret yearning to be a Wall Street trader,
She wants to be a hedge fund manager, who naturally, standing at 5 foot 3 inches, would have some big short ideas.
Yellen told Congress this week she sees social media and biotechnology as “substantially stretched.”
No, I didn’t just make that up, and while many found this fascinating, all I could think of when I read it was, “Wow, are we screwed.”
Predictably, those stock sectors got hit pretty hard when her text was released. After almost falling off my chair, I was struck by the remarkability of her comments.
I mean with all due respect, what in the world does Yellen and her fantasy stock-trading desk really know or understand about the two most cutting-edge and unpredictable stock sectors?
Even for Washington, this is a new high for chutzpah.
All one can surmise is that the easy money has gone to her head, and the nation’s central banker now thinks she is running the world’s largest hedge fund.
Well, Chair Yellen, now that we know what stocks you would short, what sectors do you have a strong buy?