Answer: Everything. Just as he did January 2008...

This is why the Fed’s claim that higher prices are just “noise” is so ridiculous. The Fed is either ignorant or lying. Neither of those is good. Indeed, the only support the Fed has for its claim is that bond yields remain at historic lows... which the Fed itself is causing.

For the 5th month in a row, US treasury bonds started with a 2-day sell-off as yields rose arond 6bps today (back to unch from FOMC). Gold, silver, and copper all gained notably (despite a knee-jerk lower on the ADP data). The US Dollar jumped instantly on the ADP print then flatlined for the rest of the day but USDJPY pushed higher. However, stocks chose to ignore their ubiquitous drivers - VIX was slammed lower (stocks ignored it) and USDJPY surged (stocks ignored it) as early weakness in Trannies was overtaken by Russell 2000 losses as the S&P and Dow flatlined in a very narrow range. Shortly after the US markets opened, credit markets diverged notably from equity markets (but caught up into the close). VIX closed lower. The Dow had its narrowest range since Dec - funny what happens when there's no $190 billion repo injection, eh? The S&P and Dow closed marginally green at new record highs. (and Camera-on-a-stick tumbles 17% from its highs)

U.S. consumers think one-year domestic price inflation will run 50-100% higher than the current headline Consumer Price Index that Wall Street uses to value financial assets. That surprising finding doesn’t come from the fringe "Inflation is nigh, repent!" camp; as ConvergEx's NBick Colas points out, it is the central observation of the New York Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Expectations. This relatively new but rigorously designed monthly dataset polls 1,200 American households on a range of financial questions, from inflation expectations to household finances and labor market conditions. The news The Fed is hearing from the survey must be a bit tough to hear. Inflation expectations are significantly higher than their "Target" of 2% already, meaning any acceleration in prices will "Feel" higher than the central bank’s notional goals.

Current forward S&P 500 P/E: 15.6x
Forward S&P 500 P/E on October 9, 2007: 15.2x

The boom is unsustainable. Investment and consumption are higher than they would have been in the absence of monetary intervention. As asset bubbles inflate, yields increase, but so do inflation expectations. To dampen inflation expectations, the Fed withdraws stimulus. As soon as asset prices start to fall, yields on heavily leveraged assets are negative. As asset prices decline, increasingly more investors are underwater. Loan defaults rise as mortgage payments adjust up with rising interest rates. When asset bubbles pop, the boom becomes the bust.

As if having to pay the highest price of gas since 2008 for the Independence Day weekend wasn't bad enough, millions of traveling east coasters will now have to deal with what may develop into a hurricane as well, and will certainly result in less than perfect weather conditions as the holiday weekend unrolls. Presenting Tropical Storm Arthur. According to NBC, a hurricane watch was issued Wednesday for part of North Carolina as the first named tropical storm of the season gathered strength and threatened July Fourth celebrations along the East Coast. Negative impact to Q3 GDP? Still unknown.

While the USA has been oddly quiet since Ukraine's President Poroshenko unilaterally ended the cease-fire, the Russians have not. This morning's "anti-terrorist" shelling of East Ukraine buildings stirred Russia's Prime Minister Medvedev to warn:

*MEDVEDEV SAYS POROSHENKO MADE MISTAKE ENDING CEASE-FIRE; PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR NEW DEATHS
*MEDVEDEV SAYS THERE MAY BE FULL FLEDGED GAS CRISIS BY FALL

Of course, Ukraine is 'fixed' - it must be: stocks are up. However, it appears a new round of violence (with little seeming room for negotiation) appears set to start as Ukraine moves ahead and Medvedev makes it clear there will be repercussions.

In Reality, War Will Bring An End to the Petrodollar, and Impose Hardship on the Average American ...

The president is increasingly finding that telling the Mr. Chairmanwoman to rig the market to all time highs does not translate to a comparable popularity rating. In fact, just the opposite. While Obama's slide in the polls is nothing new, the latest data from the Quinnipiac University Poll is about as bad as it gets for the president: in fact, perhaps the only thing more shocking than Obama "surpassing" George W. Bush as the worst president since World War II is the onset of revisionism, with some 45% saying the US would have been better with Romney as president, compared to just 38% who say Obama remains the better choice. Which incidentally confirms what we reported yesterday: while the Republican view of Obama has certainly never been lower, what is worse is that even the core democrat faithful are now giving up on the hope and change bringer, confirmed by the latest Gallup poll which saw democrat confidence in the economy tumbling to the lowest level for 2014.

The last 2 days have seen something 'odd' happen in gold markets. As the China commodity finance deals are unwound and massive futures positions squeezed, Gold ETFs have seen the biggest inflows since September 2012 (and are their highest in 2 months). Whether this is the start of trend is unclear (as perhaps the conspiracy 'fact' proof of manipulation and rigging in the gold markets stalled the hollowing out of the gold complex). Ironic that this considerable rise should occur shortly after rumors of Germany's end to repatriation calls. Gold (and silver) has broken out once again this morning after the early dump on ADP 'good' news is well bid to 3-month highs.

• BELKA `REJECTS' NOTION TAPED COMMENTS SHOW HIM CUTTING ANY DEAL
• BELKA SAYS POLISH CENTRAL BANK ISN'T COZY WITH GOVT
• BELKA REITERATES HE DOESN'T PLAN TO RESIGN
• BELKA: RESIGNATION FROM C.BANK WOULD CREATE DANGEROUS PRECEDENT

The battle for favoritism among the 'apparent' leaders in Iraq continues. Russia just delivered the second batch of Sukhoi fighter jets (which will be flown by Iraqi pilots and "are ready to provide air support to the armed forces"), and the US unloaded 4,000 additional Hellfire missiles to support Iraq's fight against the Islamist insurgents. While this morning the intelligentsia of mainstream media proclaimed "the situation in Iraq is calming down" predicated on the fact that oil prices were lower and stocks at record highs, we suspect the additional war material  to Iraq will do nothing but increase the determination of the "Islamic State" to increase its Caliphate.

If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive. This was how Dale Carnegie titled the first chapter of his 1936 personal development masterpiece—How to Win Friends and Influence People. But based on the way the US is acting, you’d think they were test-driving an entirely different manuscript - How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. Between FATCA and the BNP debacle, it appears politicians fail to realize how important the US banking system is to holding together the US economy. With all of its debt and all of its money printing, the US banking system was one of America’s last economic competitive advantages; but now we are going to see more and more foreigners curtailing their use of the US banking system... and by extension... the dollar. Without that mass of people to export dollars to, inflation will really kick in back home.

Goldman Sachs listened (and read) Janet Yellen's remarks at The IMF and see them "generally in line." Despite waffling on for minutes about risk management and monitoring, no one at The Fed has mentioned the total carnage in the repo market, spike in fails-to-deliver, and record reverse repo window-dressing that just occurred. The use of the term "reach for yield" twice and "bubble" 5 times, and admission that the Fed should never have popped the housing bubble, leaves us less sanguine than Goldman and wondering if this was Janet's subtle and nervous 'irrational exuberance" moment.