Are you sure? Maybe they cant expand there balance sheet as it might start inflation ,even tho it has been tame for so long nearly ,non existent.
I wonder why it costs me 5 bucks to stop and get a pop and candy bar HMM? Candy bar is small too..

Well I think today indicated that they are going to keep tightening. They sure don't want to expand their balance sheet further. I actually think they may have waited too long to start raising rates. But this sure isn't the time to do it as far as I'm concerned.

The trouble today was the fed was darned if they did and darned if they didn't.

With the global economy slowing it is a lousy time to make borrowing more expensive. So the market expected the increase but not the comments afterwards.

If they hadn't raised rates things could have been even worse. The market could have concluded that the Fed views the economy as too weak to raise rates and consequently the selloff could have been even worse.

So today was going to be a red day regardless of what the fed chose to do.

The other thing is that by raising rates it gives further momentum towards an inverted yield curve .......which the market REALLY views negatively. Every recent recession has been preceded by an inverted curve.

Will wait a short while before investing heavily but not too long. Opportunity knocking if you have an intermediate to long term perspective.

It doesn't matter if the Fed raises rates or not. The market will hit a wall sooner or later. What are they going to do lower rates to zero from 2.5 when we go into the next recession.As if that will be enough. Only this time we are 22 trill in the hole instead of 9 trill.

They should have never lowered rates to zero in the first place ! They should have took there medicine.

It's a time for opportunity, if you are converting to Roth, wanting to buy in or just hunker down and weather the storm if there is one. Having not gained a dime for an entire year saves in taxes and can show loses which is not a total lose either. I will say the markets aren't for everyone and if you are engaged in stocks this is a normal time. It goes up and it goes down and the worst thing anyone can do is sell when it is low. Doing nothing can make you more then doing something in times like now. I don't listen to all the noise, just buy and hold and don't sell.

I'm sure that is one reason they want to raise rates now ..............so they will have some downside flexibility the next time they need it

Absolutely !

You made good point. I beleive raising today really was a good thing because the economy, jobs and growth is in good shape right now. We need to inch it up (rates) so if bad times do come we have room to lower the rates. You would never want rates to be in negative territory. Yep, we are very close what they call a correction which is 10% and we are at 8% now or very close. A bear market is going to happen just when no one knows that.

To little to late. This is fantasy land but some day it's going to get real.

Well I'm glad we are in a situation where rates need to go up... not down.

White im sure you understand the markets and economics far better than i do.
What i think has happened is they have printed money into oblivion to the likes of never been seen in world history, at the same time said all along we dont have inflation... the only thing that has saved us to this point is the rest of the world has been doing the same but at much higher rates than we have thus the dollar has maintained against the other currencies.
I dont think its possible to print fiat dollars and not reduce the size of the pie (GDP) The only thing they can do is raise rates to sop up all the dollars to reduce the balance sheet.
But they have never dealt with something of this magnitude and are not sure how to go about it.
IMHO We have had inflation at much higher rates than have been reported all along! I never thought it would stay contained this long .
I also thought those in power were much smarter than to allow deficit spending like i have seen in my lifetime! If you study history of societies that ran on fiat currency you see it always ends in disaster and requires government collapse and start over... sadly that usually requires war ! The parity between working class general population and government Fed.state.city. ect professors making hundreds of thousands salary paid by printed money that don't produce anything results in where we are today. Unfunded pensions , million dollar bonuses paid to ceos and elites.
The young kid out of college getting 25 a hr 50- 60 g salary trying to buy even a cheap 250,000 dollar house dont add up it doesnt pencil out ... while his welfare counterpart is living in a new huge apartment complex with his girlfriend and cpl kids 1500 -2000 month rent paid by government housing authority .
Im sorry i am cynical but i dont see this monetary problem ending nice for any of us. The whole thing Stock Market ,housing prices ect A big fat inflated bubble.

Open a discount window so i can reach in and inject some liquidity into my business to the tune of a cpl million I can look pretty shiny and elite too..

I'm buying a bit right now. It'll be lower in January. In a few weeks I plan on dumping some savings into ETFs.

Are you managing your ETFs or is an advisor? Well, as far as they will be lower in Jan., really we don't know that for sure. Market timing isn't a wining game. The best is to buy on a regular basis over a long period. So getting started like you are a very good thing. We might have 2019 year being markets going side ways, or going up or going down. A lot of predictions out there but bottom line no one knows.

I understand where you're coming from ! Just a couple comments. Data shows pretty clearly that GDP will not increase without some level of inflation. What the correct level is must be variable along with different sets of circumstances.

As far as deficit spending is concerned................and those in power being smart ( that's another discussion) the conflict is between monetary policy set by the fed and fiscal extravagance indulged in by Congress. Eventually we could reach a point where the next rise in rates breaks the camel's back because all of that deficit ( now debt) becomes so costly we can't even pay the interest . At that point the rating agencies will downgrade US debt and creditors will demand even higher rates to loan us money. Just makes the problem worse.

I agree to some extent about fiat currencies but I don't view gold as any help. There just isn't enough of it to allow commerce to continue as we know it today. I suppose there could be a digital currency that might be viable but that is some ways down the road I think.

Your comment about kids with student loans is one of my pet peeves. You're right.they are already in a hole so deep they can't amass any capital or make any progress toward the 'American Dream' . It's our fault, IMO, for pushing all kids to go to college. Not all of them belong in college and would be much better off......emotionally and financially if they pursued trade school. The country would be much better off too..IMO>

How many NBA players do we need or lawyers, or Facebook executives, or politicians................compared to builders, plumbers, electricians etc. ??

I use RobinHood which is free. I like ones tied to the Russell or Dow.

Agreed - better to buy over time rather than trying to find the bottom.

The markets have reached their highs for the next several years. There is not going to be a recovery, no more corporate money repatriated which fueled this spike and it is going to be a deflationary slump. The correction either will be this losing gas 500 points at a time or a major drop in a market quake. It is going down though, as the government and the chamber of commerce have dumped in over 1 million visa workers to America the past years, and they still at low wages are not buying homes as those sales are stagnant and no longer buying cell phone or cars. That money is flowing back to their own nations.
There is not any money left in consumer's accounts from high taxes, Obamacare, inflation due to energy costs and filling your gas tank. The economy can not expand on the concentration of wealth to the few. If you can not afford to lose money, the last place anyone should have money is in the stock market.

That depends on your age. Over time there is no better way to maintain the value of your assets and keep up with inflation than the stock market.

+1

If you invested $1 in the SP 500 in 1970 and reinvested dividends, today you would have about $17k.
That's veteran than buying land.

What about the predictions that the stock market would take off after the tax cut?

Jim