Okay, Jerome Powell, now it’s your turn.
President Donald Trump on June 6 took a break from bashing Elon Musk to vent his spleen — again — at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
💵💰Don’t miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet’s free daily newsletter 💰
Trump took to his social media platform to call on Powell to slash interest rates by a full percentage point.
“’Too Late’ at the Fed is a disaster!” Trump said on Truth Social. “Europe has had 10 rate cuts, we have had none. Despite him, our Country is doing great. Go for a full point, Rocket Fuel!”
Trump made his demand even though the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that U.S. hiring in May rose more than predicted. Nonfarm payrolls rose 139,000 for the month, exceeding estimates for 125,000.
The last time the central bank made a single rate cut of a full percentage point was in March 2020 to address economic fallout from the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has been a target of President Donald Trump’s rage.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Trump wants rate cuts; this investor says wait a sec
The Fed cut rates by one full point in total during President Joe Biden’s final year in office.
“If ‘Too Late’ at the Fed would CUT, we would greatly reduce interest rates, long and short, on debt that is coming due,” Trump said, using the two-word name he calls Powell. “Biden went mostly short term.”
More Economic Analysis:
Hedge-fund manager sees U.S. becoming GreeceA critical industry is slamming the economyReports may show whether the economy is toughing out the tariffs
“There is virtually no inflation (anymore), but if it should come back, RAISE “RATE” TO COUNTER. Very Simple!!! He is costing our Country a fortune. Borrowing costs should be MUCH LOWER!!!”
It seems like only yesterday when the president was giving Musk — Tesla’s (TSLA) CEO and a big-time Trump backer — all kinds of misery after the former head of the Department of Government Efficiency decried Trump’s “big beautiful bill” of tax breaks and spending cuts as pork-laden and a “disgusting abomination.”
Actually, it was yesterday, come to think of it, when Trump suggested that an easy way to save “Billions and Billions of Dollars” was to terminate all of Musk’s government contracts and subsidies.
Tesla and Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, both benefit from a a number of government programs.
Musk, who took credit for getting Trump elected, also decided it would be a good idea to bring up Jeffrey Epstein’s name while Tesla shares nosedived.
TheStreet Pro’s Peter Tchir says that if you’re looking for excitement, this is the social-media donnybrook to watch. Unlike the payroll data.
The veteran investor said in a recent TheStreet Pro column that the report looked decent on the surface but “there are a lot of things to pick on.”
“The prior two months were revised down by 95,000,” he said. “That negates much of this month’s reported gain in the Establishment Survey.”
Investor Tchir has questions about jobs report
The Establishment Survey, also known as the Current Employment Statistics survey, provides monthly data on employment, hours and earnings of workers on nonfarm payrolls.
“The Household Survey, used for the unemployment rate, lost over 600,000 jobs,” Tchir said. “The unemployment rate remained unchanged only because labor-force participation dropped by a similar amount.”
Related: An investor looks at navigating tariff wars
The birth/death model, which estimates the number of jobs created by new businesses and lost from defunct businesses, added 199,000 jobs, he added.
“With low survey response rates, etc., there are a lot of things to question about the quality of the data (the seemingly endless downward revisions validate that ‘questioning’), but this number is back to ‘bothering’ me,'” Tchir said.
Without this calculated number, he explained, “we would have lost jobs in the Establishment Survey “kind of like the Household Survey indicated.”
“Sure, it is possible that in a time of peak uncertainty, lots of new businesses were formed, but the number seems high,” Tchir said.
“It is the second month in a row when there is a lot of uncertainty, where birth/death adjustment was bigger than the number itself. That is why I would weigh this into being more dovish, if I was at the Fed.”
Foul weather might have also had a negative impact on the data.
“If the Fed was looking to cut rates, it could probably come up with a story around this data to let it do so,” Tchir said. “Since the Fed doesn’t seem to be looking to cut rates, though, there is enough of a narrative in this report to keep it on hold.”
“After this data, I remain in the three-to-four-cuts-this-year camp, starting in July.”
Related: Fund-management veteran skips emotion in investment strategy
