Yes, the Fed Can Still Engineer a 'Soft Landing': Callie Cox, eToro

A short clip of actionable highlights from this podcast episode was distributed to premium subscribers on Feb. 9 — almost one week ago at the time of this writing. The full podcast episode followed a day after that. To become a premium subscriber and take advantage of this and a host of other benefits (and avoid annoying ads and announcements), visit our Supercast or Substack and sign up!

Callie Cox of eToro joins the podcast to discuss her view that the Federal Reserve can engineer a 'soft landing' -- defeating inflation while not tipping the US economy into a recession.

• It's hard to see how the Fed will be able to combat inflation without breaking things in the economy, but this is the guest's view (3:00);
• This view is partly based on the job market (4:06);
• Inflation is the major risk to the 'soft landing' thesis. But there are encouraging signs (6:00);
• Still, there is a chance investors are underestimating the chances of higher interest rates from the Fed (8:08);
• Ultimately, investors are discounting the global economy's strength (9:21);
• Technology has been harder hit than other sectors of the economy, which may bring second-order effects especially locally. But nationally, initial jobless claims are still low (13:57);
• The US consumer has been a particular strong point. No reason for that to stop (15:53);
• Background on the guest (20:12);
• Views on cryptocurrency (24:48);
• The concept of decentralized finance, or DeFi: not just a fool's errand (26:43);
• Does the VIX still matter? Maybe, but there are better options to gauge volatility (31:14).

• Website: eToro.com;
• Corporate Twitter: @eToroUS;
• Personal Twitter: @CallieAbost.