Bill Ackman, the billionaire founder of Pershing Square, repeated his call to the Fed to take aggressive action to combat inflation via Twitter, reports an article in Yahoo! Finance. His call comes amidst a report that indicates the worst negative outlook among consumers in the past decade. That outlook is a result of inflation, not a weak economy, Ackman stressed in his tweet.
The report from the Conference Board showed that the consumer confidence index dropped from 103.2 in May to 98.7 in June. Meanwhile, the expectations index, which gauges the short-term outlook for the job market, income growth, and the general economic environment, hit its lowest level since March 2013 at 66.4, according to the article.
Ackman had advocated for a dramatic rate hike from the Fed, urging a raise of 100 basis points or more. He posited that the quicker the central bank “can get to a terminal FF rate,” the faster the recovery will be for markets. Shortly after that tweet on June 14th, the Fed raised rates 75 basis points—a steep hike, though not quite to the level that Ackman advised.
