FOMC chairman, Ben Bernanke, is scheduled to speak at 1pm EST today about inflation.  The DOW is off about 50 points this morning as I write this and the 5, 10 and 30 year bonds are all being sold off a little this morning, pushing yields higher.  My guess is that Bernanke will say that inflation is still a concern. At some point, the people that are supposedly in charge of the monetary policies of the US economy will start to say that oil and food prices (which are not included in core inflation numbers) is actually having an effect on US consumers and their negative savings rate.

Other interesting news this morning is a statement by Home Depot that earnings are going to be way off this year (by 15% to 18%) due to the slowdown in the housing market.  Of course, HD is trading higher right now, probably due to the announced stock by back by Home Depot.

[tags]FOMC, Ben Bernanke, The Fed, Inflation, Home Depot, Economy[/tags]