Thanks, John Williams
It was an innocuous comment, but still.
For a brief moment shortly after lunch on Thursday every major equity index, crude oil, gold, the CBOE 10-Year US Treasury Note Yield Index, the US Dollar Index, and Bitcoin $BTC were in the green on a percentage basis.It was probably right around then that investors, traders, and speculators started reacting to the mere hypothetical mention of a rate hike by New York Fed President John Williams.
Up until then, the market seemed to be poised for the start of first-quarter earnings reporting by big tech companies, led by Netflix $NFLX.
That earnings are at least a secondary focus is a good thing. There’s a lot of story around central banks, interest rates, and inflation. And it’s important to understand those things.
In spite of all of that, at the end of the day, price is the only thing that pays, and for publicly traded companies over the long term that comes down to making money and creating value for shareholders.
At the end of Thursday, NFLX showed, at least based on the metrics it wants to emphasize right now, it’s doing that.
There’s more on NFLX’s first quarter and how it plans to continue creating “engagement and fandom” below.