Market participants may well associate bad news on the economy with an increase in fiscal spending and lower bond prices.

Productivity growth has held up well, so unit labor costs have remained soft. Against that backdrop, the inflation threat remains muted in our view. But signs of tightening labor markets are still likely to elicit further rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

Housing is backing off from its leadership role in the economy, but clearly something else is replacing it. The Fed has a little more to do and then they can rest on their oars.

The economy is doing fine. We're at the lowest unemployment rates in a generation. Inflation is hard to find. There's just aren't the kinds of problems that would induce to you take new medicine. So if the medicine at the moment is a 4-3/4 percent Fed funds rate, keep it there.

The good news from market perspective is that if the economy is slower, all else equal, that takes pressure off the Federal Reserve.

It is magnificent that inflation continues to be low, but retail sales are smoking.

We had a great run. After a market has had a big run, you either get a correction in price or a correction in time.

The Federal Reserve has been for some time thinking of the economy as having two diametrically opposing influences: strength domestically and weakness overseas. There's nothing we've learned (today) that changes that view.

It's a matter of words that don't have much content. The fact that they've said they have a bias to tighten means nothing if meeting after meeting nothing happens.