Today was a relief rally; it was an oil-price relief story, ... Oil prices are still very high, but much more moderate than the worst fears of last week.

Today was a relief rally; it was an oil-price relief story. Oil prices are still very high, but much more moderate than the worst fears of last week.

They are definitely off auto pilot. Although another increase at the end of March seems likely, the statement in the minutes reinforces the view that future policy steps will depend more on the behavior of economic statistics.

Wall Street breathed a collective sigh of relief this week as fears of mounting inflationary pressures and additional rate hikes by the Federal Reserve suddenly evaporated.

They (investors) tend to overreact to individual economic reports which may be more statistical noise than an underlying trend which takes three to four months to develop, ... They tend to pay equal attention to almost any report that is relevant, and some are more significant than others.

We had expected a snap-back in consumer spending after a decline in May, and that's what these numbers showed. Consumers appeared to be optimistic in their spending, despite the stock market and the ongoing corporate frauds and malfeasance.