The stock market seems to be betting on a interest rate cut from the Fed. Some fed members are saying "no so fast." Here is an article by Bloomberg's Craig Torres.
If conventional wisdom was really an accurate indicator, then conventional wisdom would know that lower energy prices translates into more consumer spending.
According to the fed, "Members continued to see a substantial risk that inflation would not decline as anticipated by the committee.''
Also, "Policy makers discussed housing at length in September and saw no signs that the downturn had spilled over into broader consumption and investment."
Today, the market woke up to read about earnings disappointments from Alcoa, Legg Mason, and Monsanto. With the economy slowing, and an inflation picture that is still not completely under control, could conventional wisdom be wrong again ?
As a heads up, we are pleased with the performance of IA portfolio holding Mastercard (MA- bought @ $44.75). With the stock trading around $70, we are looking forward to the coming IPO on Visa.
Bloomberg reports that , " Visa has twice as many cards in use as No. 2 MasterCard, which has 749 million, and Visa customers spent almost three times as much as the $1.66 trillion MasterCard users charged last year, according to Visa. That gave Visa a 65 percent market share for 2005, with MasterCard second at 26 percent and American Express Co. third at 8 percent."
