Succinct Summation of Powell's comments/Yen intervention again/More mixed bag company comments

The succinct summation of Powell's comments: their bias is to ease but just not yet and now they are more equally balancing the unemployment rate with their inflation focus in determining when. If more tightening is needed, they will most likely effect it by just keeping rates at current levels for longer, not by hiking further. They will shrink the shrinkage of their balance sheet but likely extend out the process of QT longer than otherwise. 

About an hour after Powell was done talking, the Japanese intervened again, maybe thinking that the slight US yield drop gave them another window, and the yen spiked, though there was no official confirmation of that, similar to the first one. Masato Kanda, the vice minister for international affairs told Bloomberg News, "I have nothing to say now on whether we intervened in the foreign currency market. We will disclose intervention data at the end of this month." 

It seemed that the first intervention cost them about $35b and yesterday was about $23b based on daily account data. I'll say this, unless the BoJ raises rates and/or the Federal Reserve cuts rates, the Japanese are throwing a lot of money down the drain if they think FX intervention is going to work sustainably. 

Intraday Yen

I heard a really interesting perspective on the consumer from my friend Neely Tamminga on a Twitter (X) Spaces I was doing yesterday. Via her consumer surveys and insights she helped to explain why a Domino's Pizza and Chipotle are doing better than McDonald's or Starbucks. When a consumer needs to commit $10 for a meal, they feel like they can squeeze out two meals with a pizza pie and a bowl/burrito with that $10 while $10 will only get you one meal at a McDonald's and Starbucks. This is the extent at which many consumers are budgeting their money. 

Again, when reading the following earnings comments, it all continues to sound like one big very mixed bag. 

Doordash is showing again how difficult it is to make money in delivery but from a user perspective, they are still seeing strong top line growth. 

"In general, we're not seeing the signs of strain on the consumer, but I think it perhaps has something to do with the segment that we operate in, which is digital and delivery. I do understand that there are some headwinds that certain merchants face when it comes to in-store traffic. But when it comes to all things digital, we're actually not seeing, I think, those same signs of strains. Even, for example, in the US restaurants business the growth is pretty consistent over the last six quarters."

Etsy's revenue barely grew in the quarter y/o/y, the stock is down sharply pre market and said this, "while US unemployment is low and inflation data is mixed, consumer sentiment remains depressed, which some speculate can be attributable to the very high cost of money. Consumer wallets remain squeezed, so there's often little left after paying for good, gas rent, and childcare. And there's significant data indicating that the largest e-commerce platforms have primarily been able to grow by selling everyday essentials at very low prices."