Michelle Laughlin Quotations

Nearly unanimous. Nobody expects the Federal Reserve to move today.

His testimony today is so important because the markets, in the wake of his comments suggesting the Fed has shifted have gone so far as to price in an ease.

I think the Fed is in a wait-and-see mode so the market is going to be in a wait-and-see mode. We're going to wait until we can assess the impact of Asia.

There is a lot of speculation out there about what prompted the move. Some have said there may be another hedge fund blow-up out there.

This tells me the Fed is correctly looking forward, looking at the risk of consumers pulling back in spending because stocks have fallen. They're working in anticipation of that to make sure the U.S. economy does not slip into recession. I'm very encouraged by the Fed's action.

We are still seeing pockets of strength, and pockets of weakness, and while I don't think the Fed will move in December, I do think we will see further rate cuts in '99.

There's no sign whatsoever that strong (economic) growth is leading to higher inflation. The Fed is not going to upset the apple cart.

The Treasury is issuing $37 billion worth of additional supply and that's leading to some indigestion in the markets as well.

The thing yesterday for the first time in a long time was reduced risk-aversion...it was the reverse of the flight-to-quality.

The whole debate about whether deflation is a risk has come full circle.

There just has not been any appetite for corporate debt and corporate bonds.

It's not worse than what we've seen, so I think the market can weather it.

The U.S. economy is quite strong right now; however, globally there are still a good number of risks which exist.

The sentiment we have seen with the stock market correction -- I think it is something the Fed is worried about.

I'm watching it. I'm reserving judgment, but I do think it's a cautionary flag.

I really think, in the end, it probably doesn't matter for the Fed. They have made it clear that they want to be preemptive. They want to take action before signs of inflation are apparent so they can get ahead of the curve, and (that way) they have to do less in terms of raising interest rates instead of doing more.