Refreshing to hear

After seeing so many companies over the years, especially many financial companies in the mid 2000's, waste money on buying back overvalued stock in a robotic way that just gooses short term eps at the longer term cost of stretching the balance sheet, rather than buy when the stock is undervalued, it was refreshing to hear Jamie Dimon being a true steward of shareholder value and company resources. He said yesterday, "When the stock goes up, we'll buy less and when it comes down, we'll buy more." Also, as an obvious banking veteran, "buying back stock as a financial company greatly in excess of two times tangible book is a mistake."

JP Morgan's Price to Tangible Book Value

There is more Fed speak today, especially from Governor Waller who has clear authority on the committee in terms of his opinions matching up with Powell for the most part. What we've heard so far from others is their belief that policy is 'restrictive', though certainly not in the financial markets, but it remains a wait and see, play it by ear, stance when it comes to when it will be time to cut interest rates. 

Keep in mind that while the ECB is going to cut rates in June, rents in the Eurozone are only about 6% of its harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) so not really capturing anywhere close to the allocation households have to their housing budget. The Fed of course does include it in a much bigger way when they see CPI/PCE, though it's much greater in the former than the latter in terms of weights.