Safe Havens Rise As Jittery Investors Eye Rising Geopolitical Concerns

With volume starting to fade ahead of Friday’s holiday, and geopolitical concerns growing as a US aircraft carrier approaches North Korean, S&P futures pointed to a slightly lower open, in line with stock markets in Europe and Asia. Safe havens such as gold and treasuries strengthened along with Japanese yen, which erased all of yesterday’s losses and neared its 110 support on investor caution about global security risks and the future of U. S. interest rates after Yellen’s Monday speech failed to provide clarity.
“I think we have a healthy economy now,” Yellen said at an event at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy in Ann Arbor and confirmed that the ‘appropriate stance of policy is now closer to, let me call it neutral’ and that ‘we want to be ahead of the curve and not behind it’.
“Whereas before we had our foot pressed down on the gas pedal trying to give the economy all the oomph we possibly could, now allowing the economy to kind of coast and remain on an even keel — to give it some gas but not so much that we are pressing down hard on the accelerator — that’s a better stance of monetary policy,” she said.
Yellen also suggested that inflation is still below 2% in her estimation. Yellen also voiced some concern about the Fed’s independence being under threat, referring specifically to two bills put forth in Congress and legislation that would require the Fed to follow a simple mathematical rule in setting interest rates and any deviation from it would result in calling in the General Accounting Office to conduct audits.
Crude oil ended this year’s best run, and was modestly lower in early trading.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Apr 11, 2017.