Trump Blames Market Correction On Fed, Says Won’t Fire Powell
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Thu, 10/11/2018
With US stocks headed for their sixth day of losses, President Trump has decided to clarify that he’s “not going to fire” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell after bashing the central bank and its “aggressive” interest-rate hikes in comments made Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Trump’s not angry with the Fed chief, he said; rather, he’s just “disappointed.”
While Trump said he’ll let Powell keep his job (for now, at least), the president tripled down on his claim that the Fed is responsible for the 1,100 point two-drop in the Dow, saying that the central bank is being “too stringent” and they’re “making a mistake.”
Here’s a roundup of key quotes from Trump’s latest interview.
“It’s a correction that I think is caused by the Federal Reserve,” President Trump says, when asked about the markets.
“I think the Fed is far too stringent and they’re making a mistake”
“I’m not going to fire him,” he says about Fed Chairman Jerome Powell
And in another comment that will aggravate policy makers (the Treasury in particular) and dollar bulls alike, Trump sounded less-than-enthusiastic about the dollars’ strength so far this year, saying that “frankly” the strong dollar “doesn’t necessarily mean all good.”
“The dollar is very strong, very powerful,” President Trump tells reporters in the Oval Office amid continued criticism of the Fed’s interest rate policies. “And that causes just a little difficulty with doing business, frankly. Strong dollar doesn’t necessarily mean all good. But we do have a very strong dollar.”
Somewhere in California, Janet Yellen just sparked up a joint and started giggling at the television…
