Will This Moment Spark A Stock Market Sell-Off?

 | Mar 08, 2017 06:09AM ET

Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen, in a speech given in Chicago, last Friday, March 3rd, 2017, suggested that the Fed will likely resume raising interest rates later this month.

Yellen also said that the Fed expects steady economic improvement to justify additional rate increases. While not specifying how many rate hikes could occur this year, Dr. Yellen noted that Fed officials, in December, had estimated that there would be three in 2017. The Fed's next meeting will occur on March 14th to 15th, 2017. They will “evaluate whether employment and inflation are continuing to evolve in line with our expectations, in which case a further adjustment of the federal funds rate would likely be appropriate .” Our personal bias is that the Fed will raise rates again.

Brad McMillan, Chief Investment Officer at Commonwealth Financial Network, noted “The real takeaway here is if the Fed is willing to start moving, they see the economy as not only doing better but likely to do better going forward. The Fed is notorious for waiting until the evidence of growth is absolutely undeniable.” The ECB is running out of corporate and public bonds to purchase, so now they are looking to buy stocks.

The Next Real Bubble Is In Commercial Real Estate!

The coming financial implosion is not going to be about the large global banks. It will be concentrated on Insurance Companies, Pensions Plans, Trusts and Endowments and small banks and credit unions. These are the institutions with the bulk of their invested assets in some form of U.S. commercial real estate!

The availability of cheap debt has propelled property investment sales. The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at historically low levels. Is the era of cheap money coming to an end? It can’t last forever! When interest rates begin to climb up quickly and unexpectedly, that will put pressure on investors’ interest in commercial real estate assets. Only if the Fed maintains its’ status quo, will the real estate market remain stable.