I’m not presuming they’ll be aggressively cutting rates [this year] if we see data turning around. But traditionally, the Fed holds rates low for a year and a half after a recession, and usually continues...

We’re getting to a phase where European data could have more of an impact because a solid U.S. economic scenario is so widely expected. The markets are also very thin, so traders aren’t taking on...

Whether you’re going into business for yourself or not, you’re still looking at a very anemic job market.

The underlying state of the economy is on weak footing, and we’re going to need further stimulus to keep the recovery on track.

In the near term, markets are getting very excited about the idea of the end of quantitative easing, and that’s causing the yen to come under some upward pressure.

It’s always been very important to listen to CEOs. When you’ve got guys that run companies nervous about demand, they put off investing.

I don’t see the scope for the ECB to match the Fed in terms of raising rates and this will continue to support the dollar. The ECB tends to lag the Fed and even if...

The next couple of months will be absolutely crucial. If we can get through this, we’re going to have growth that will be consumer-led next year.

Today’s report was a case of familiar culprits — apparel prices continue to put downward pressure on inflation, and housing and medical care continue to put upward pressure on inflation.

With M&A activity picking up, productivity growth will stay robust, and that means continued new efficiencies, and a lot of that will overshadow new job creation.

The report was dollar positive. With the combination of solid data for the headline and what looks like increasing price pressure, that means you are going to see U.S. yields continue to rise and the...

They have clearly started to apply more pressure. They have singled out China and the rest of the emerging market economies.

We are seeing a slowdown, but we’re not necessarily seeing a slow economy, … The Fed is still going to be on alert for inflation, and we’re going to have to wait and see more...

Stocks in this recovery have performed far worse than the last three recoveries. You really have to ask yourself, as a whole, what the markets are seeing out there.

Inflation is looking more benign outside of the energy sector.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the Fed did stick with the positive and ignore the negative, but I can’t imagine them taking out the statement [in their August policy announcement] that says ‘labor market indicators...

There can be a circular effect — if consumers lose confidence and businesses are nervous that the consumer will stop spending, and they downgrade production expectations or lay people off or stop hiring people because...

This is undeniably good news. The crucial question going forward is going to be if the rise in confidence is reflected in more spending on the part of the consumer, or if it’s simply a...

Almost always the knee-jerk reaction in the markets to positive news on reforms is yen positive. People look at reform as being a positive thing for Japan, one day, hopefully.

Markets initially seem to be focusing more on the downward revision in growth than the upward revision to the deflator.

In a typical recession, you see people…consolidate their domestic balance sheets. Instead, spending [has been] as robust as before, and that’s hurt domestic balance sheets. We’re really at a point where the consumer is squeezing...

For the past year and a half, the consumer has defied a recession and Sept. 11 and kept spending at a healthy pace.

I think a lot of gloom still exists about the size of the deficit and the market is punishing the dollar for that.

This is not a ‘ripping off the Band-Aid’ kind of situation, where you know how much the pain will be and that you’ll be fine afterwards. We don’t know how well the economy has healed....

It erodes the relative interest-rate support for the dollar.

Europeans’ cries are falling on deaf ears. Their wish that the euro not bear the burden of readjustment will not make it into the G7 statement.

The consumer is finally winding down, … We’ve seen income growth slow somewhat, and we have enough headwinds building that we can make a strong case for spending slowing markedly.

The trade number at best leaves the dollar where it was and at worst sparks a substantial dollar decline.

We are still seeing some slack in the labor market, in several different places.

If we’re in a situation where rates are higher because the economy’s great, the housing market is going to be last thing I’ll be worried about.

We are seeing pretty solid export growth. You are starting to see the U.S. benefit from faster growth in Asia and the rest of the world.

It’s the same meat, but with a different gravy, … The real guts of the Fed’s statement is very much unchanged.

The dollar is largely unchanged. In these holiday markets, I think releases like tomorrow’s personal income data are going to be more critical than the backward-looking GDP report.

I think it’s too soon to call for a bottom simply because history has shown us that with this currency, it’s a tough bet.

I still don’t expect a double dip [into recession], and I don’t think the consumer will turn around [and stop spending], but I do take that confidence number very seriously.

What the current deficit does is make the dollar vulnerable. It means we could see a vicious cycle, where a declining dollar makes U.S. assets less attractive to foreign investors, which weakens our assets further,...

We are definitely getting another rate cut.

The report is certainly better than in December, but it just doesn’t reflect the level of job creation we’d expect to see at this stage of the economic recovery, or the job creation the Fed...

I firmly believe consumer spending will stay in positive territory, but I think we will see further signs of consumer fatigue as the year progresses.

This shows our big reliance on imports and foreign capital. As the dollar weakens, that becomes a more and more expensive habit. It makes our imports more expensive, makes the trade deficit wider, makes us...

The weaker-than-expected housing number still leaves housing at a fairly high level of activity but will raise some eyebrows as markets worry about the (Federal Reserve) overshooting (with rate hikes).

I don’t think there’s really any doubt the housing market remains extremely robust and growing. I had expected housing to fade. Now that we’re out of recession, I don’t really know what would knock it...

As the economy gets more and more dependent on housing being the key driver of growth, the economy becomes more and more vulnerable to that sector slowing down.

What this means is that business leaders are not convinced that strong sales numbers will be maintained on or at the same level.

I don’t think there is a tremendous amount the Fed can do, but they can’t stay on the sidelines. Unless the data stream improves, they have to cut rates.

Market expectations for both are very fluid. All of this is driving Japanese yields up and causing the market to switch from the yen into the Swiss franc as the funding currency for carry trades.

Greenspan’s perfectly fulfilled his mandate, … And there are a couple of things he couldn’t have manipulated even if he’d wanted to [such as] Enron and WorldCom — these are things that the Fed can’t...

[Investors take the number seriously] so you have to view it as being not very good news, … But I’m not a fan of it. It’s so new, and it doesn’t seem to correlate with...

You can really think of productivity as magic fairy dust to sprinkle over growth to allow growth without inflation. That’s really the way the Fed sees it.

If we get a downside surprise in retail sales, everybody will shrug it off. We all know that April was a bad month for the economy; the markets are really geared toward May.