Excerpt from CNBC’s article featuring Horizon Investments’ Greg Valliere
A flurry of Fed speakers, including the Fed chair, will keep markets busy Wednesday.
There are also mortgage applications at 7 a.m. EDT, durable goods data at 8:30 a.m. EDT and oil inventory data at 10:30 a.m. EDT. OPEC, meanwhile, is meeting in Algeria and could continue to create volatility in oil prices after headlines from there triggered a near 3 percent plunge Tuesday.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen appears before the House Financial Services Committee at 10 a.m. on supervision and regulation.
The Fed chair was personally criticized in the presidential debate Monday night by GOP candidate Donald Trump, who said the Fed’s decision to keep rates low was political and that it’s creating a bubble in the stock market.
“It has to worry the markets that potentially you could have a president getting into a nasty dispute with the chairman of the Fed in early 2017. That’s something the market would not like to see. I think the Fed has not done a very good job communicating. It’s a cacophony of confusing comments. There’s reason to criticize the Fed, but the personal attack on Yellen is unprecedented,” said Greg Valliere, chief global strategist at Horizon Investments.
Traders are watching to see if Yellen is in the political hot seat on banking regulation and supervision when she appears before the committee.
“She has some very vocal critics in the House. She always gets a rough time during Q and A from [Rep. Jeb] Hensarling and people like that,” said Valliere, chief global strategist at Horizon Investments. “I’m sure she’ll get a thorough grilling.”
