Word: feds
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Barbara Tyler was so fed up with all the political ads blaring from her local TV stations that she switched to a satellite provider - but that didn't stop the flyers that are pouring through her Laingsburg, Mich., mailbox or the pollsters who keep calling to plumb her latest thoughts. George W. Bush and Al Gore have been spending so much time in the Tampa?St. Petersburg area of Florida that they are beginning to seem like neighbors. "In the past, if they came once, it was a momentous occasion," says Hillsborough County commissioner Jan Platt...
...tech market is in a curious sort of psychological Catch-22 these days: Investors are waiting for things to calm down, and it's making them very nervous. Most forecasters look ahead to November or December as a time of some calm and clarity. The Fed will have a clearer picture of the economic soft-landing/slowdown. The nation will have a new president-elect unburdened by campaign-specific rhetoric. And this blasted earnings season will be over...
...Well, almost. There was hardly any suspense at all this time about the actual decision. This is election time, when the stringently apolitical Fed just doesn't want to get involved unless it absolutely has to, and after last week's twin interventions on behalf of both the euro and oil prices, this was not the time Greenspan wanted to roil the markets in any way. But there are clouds on the horizon, and when Greenspan mentioned one of them - rising oil prices that could exert inflationary pressures - investors had a little sell-off, stopped, and then sold again until...
...Fed's biggest news of the day was that its announcement came in about two minutes earlier than usual. The market will go on worrying about earnings and trying to figure out whether it wants to finally mount a real rally after a dismal year for the Street. And everybody - maybe even the voters - will be a little on edge until this whole election thing blows over. Wall Street, more than ever, is confused about this election. Gore is attracting support unusual for a Democrat as the techie representing the eight-year economic boom, while Bush's tax cut worries...
...Will oil prices, which can act like a tax and dampen consumer spending, continue to do the Fed's soft-landing work for it? Or will they smother the boom? Will corporate earnings pick up? Will the euro ever recover? As the Fed chairman made clear with those ever-so-slightly-hawkish comments about energy prices, Uncle Alan may be on the sidelines - but he's watching. And he'll see us in December...