EQUITIES: Equities Rally After Trump Says He "Won't Use Force"

Gov Miran on Bloomberg TV says that the incoming data have "come out in accordance with my view of the world", referring in particular to last week's CPI and Employment Situation reports. His view of course includes further rate cuts in 2026.

• Inflation "has steadily come in cooler than expectations", with the unemployment rate having "poked up potentially above where people thought it was going to go", so overall "we have had data that should push people into a dovish direction."
• He acknowledges that the softer-than-expected CPI print included "a couple of anomalies" that suppressed the figures to the downside but "the consequences are not huge", with an impact of "in the neighborhood of 2/10 of a point" for PCE split between shelter data quirks and 2nd half-November collection date effects.
• (Note NY Fed's Williams commented last Friday that "technical factors" associated with the BLS's post-shutdown estimates may have pushed down CPI by around 0.1pp.)
• He repeats previous comments that housing inflation is overstated, and while there was "some downward bias" in the latest report "there's been tons of upward bias" for most of the year and "it's inappropriate to say ok, we have to adjust for the downward bias but we are going to accept the upward bias. That is a deeply biased position."
• He says he hasn't decided on whether to push for a 25bp or 50bp cut at the January meeting - he "could see voting for" 25 given that with rates having come down 75bp at the last 3 meetings "the need for me to dissent for 50 becomes less", but "I do think it's important we continue steadily reducing the policy rate". Of course, that could be Miran's last meeting if he is replaced after his term ends at the end of January.
• "I think there is a lot of people on the Committee who are uncomfortable with rate cuts. I think that's the wrong economic position at the moment... I think you have to give Chairman Powell a credit for having wrangled three cuts out of these guys in succession."

• 10,300 TYG6 113/114 call spds 11 ref 112-14.5

Novia Scotia's Finance Minister John Lohr speaks after a budget update -- on MNI Policy MainWire now, for more details please contact sales@marketnews.com.