00:00Yeah, we see the numbers, and it is a considerable increase, even though the prior month and the conference board
00:06number was revised up to 89, the jump to 91.2 is significant.
00:11And we see it also in the present situation, which is 120.
00:15Now, that actually comes down from a revised number of 121.8, but last month it was 113.7.
00:22So perhaps Americans are changing their minds a lot.
00:26Expectations go up to 72 from 67.2.
00:29And this would be reasonably good news, although, as you mentioned, I just finished talking with Chicago Fed President Austin
00:35Goolsbee,
00:36and he says he doesn't put much stock in the consumer sentiment numbers these days because they seem to have
00:41decoupled from what consumers are doing.
00:44Consumers have been hanging in there.
00:46And he said that if they do, and we still see some strong growth in the economy, he's hopeful we'll
00:52get a couple more rate cuts this year.
00:54This is what he said.
00:55I'm still optimistic that we're basically cruising along with solid growth, a steady labor market.
01:04We've got some encouraging and some discouraging signs coming on the inflation side.
01:11If we can just get some improvement, I feel like we could still get back on the golden path that
01:17we were on before.
01:22Now, a lot of this may have changed in the consumer confidence numbers, guys, because we got that strong January
01:28payrolls report.
01:29The number of people who think jobs will be plentiful rose significantly to 28 from 25.5, and jobs hard
01:36to get is little changed at 20.6.
01:39So people feeling a little bit better about it, and employment in the future goes up to 15.7 from
01:4514.8.
01:46So if people think that the job market is hanging in there, that was one of the criteria that Austin
01:52Goolsbee wants to see.
01:53It's also one of the criteria that Chris Waller wants to see.
01:56And our takeaway from N.A.B.E. is that the two members of the Fed are almost on the
02:02same page.
02:02If the labor market is strong and inflation is going down, then even Chris Waller would probably vote for a
02:08hold.
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