Prominent market commentator Jim Cramer said on Monday that a strong labor report could lead the Federal Reserve to start talking about enormous rate hikes, according to CNBC.
“We need to see the unemployment rate go higher, while wages remain stable and we get meaningful lay-offs in some industries. If that doesn’t happen, if the numbers are truly strong, then the Fed heads will come out of the woodwork and start talking about how we need more enormous rate hikes,” he said according to the report.
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The Labor Department is scheduled to release the November non-farm payrolls report on Friday. “Seasonally, it tends to be a little bit weaker, before things really take off again come December,” Cramer said.
Interestingly, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said on Monday the central bank needs to hike interest rates quite a bit going further and hold them there throughout 2023 and into the year after to rein in inflation and bring it back towards the 2% goal.
Bullard’s comments come ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at an event on Wednesday hosted by the Brookings Institution in Washington which is nominally focused on the labor market.
Major Wall Street indices closed over 1% lower on Monday and market participants are keenly awaiting the release of the economic data as well as Powell’s speech. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY closed 1.6% lower on Monday while the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund ETF BND closed 0.12% lower.
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