Did President Joe Biden just call an emergency meeting of the PPT?
Bloomberg reported Monday morning that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and a coterie of senior financial regulators have been summoned to a meeting with President Biden at the White Housefollowing last week's selloff, which marked the worst week for the Dow in eight months.
Federal Reserve Chief Jerome Powell, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Acting Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Rostin Behnam will attend meeting with President Biden today.Attendees also include:
The meeting, set for Tuesday, has been called todiscuss "the state of the country's financial system and institutions",including discussions of climate risk and "financial inclusion".
Now that the FOMC has signaled that the 'tapering talk' has finally begun via the latest hawkish tilt in its dot plot, released after the close of last week's two-day policy meeting, it's clear that America's economic policymakers are growing increasingly nervous about market stability, given last week's reaction to the Fed. As Lance Roberts pointed out, the implications of tapering are clear: it's positive for rates, and negative for equities.
And with President Biden preparing to raise taxes to finance his "Build Back Better" program of "infrastructure" investment, it's clearly in the White House's interest to do whatever it can to ensure an orderly market transition to the rising rate regime.
It's not like the PPT has been entirely absent from markets: wehave already seensuspected PPT interventions this year.
If our instincts are correct, this would markthe first meeting of the PPT since a call to discuss "market conditions"held last March as equity markets were in the middle of a brutal (if short-lived) bear market.
Powell is also expected to testify before Congress tomorrow in his latest testimony on the economy as required by the COVID stimulus.