Apple can't push up the markets huh? Just teasing, great article just a little irony given yesterday's headwinds vs. Apple's performance proving a tailwind.

In terms of inflation, such conditions don't exist but for brief periods, very brief periods as proven across every inflationary metric. It's why the term reflation is more commonly being used in the modern era. The reason for more rates hikes is less about inflation given the history of inflationary data points and more about the Fed's desire to raise rates to be more on par with economic output as it aims to also give itself breathing room should they need to lower rates in the future. My opinions of course.

I'm not sure where it's debatable that the Fed is the only authority with regards to its balance sheet and actions related to its holdings. Somewhat a red herring argument no and somewhat unrelated. Nonetheless, something I will certainly read as I'm speaking out our annual conference and appreciate a wide range of resources to include in my materials. Thank you kindly!

Investors for equities? Bonds? I think many in equities but the cyclical demand for bonds/yield back even then was significantly lower than the previous cycle. Demand peak for 2008 cycle that you might say started post 9-11 was right around 5% yields. The cycle leading up to dotcom crash was above 6.5%. So while we like to say the "Fed is responsible for this and that" debt tells a very constant and different story that ends with the inefficiency of the Fed rather than any causation from the Fed. Colloquialism are great for superficial rambling, but they mostly fail the sniff test.

My point is bond yields only go in one direction long-term and as fundamental economic principle, also displayed but the historic chart of yields where they begin in the upper left hand corner and ultimately decline from there and to current, at least. The can only do so much, again as indicated in the history of supply and demand for debt and for very brief periods of time. Hard to believe that the Fed, at this stage of modern economics, would be able to fool the amount of investors and governments needed to inflate demand to any significant degree.

Thank you Gary, and with respect to your comment/reply there is historically depleting demand for bonds over time. This can be reviewed with a historic chart of the 10-yr yield?

How can this be accurately viewed when accounting for wages, unemployment and the fact that even with yields rising, in kind with the pace of wages at this stage, we're still talking about a 10yr yield that will be nearly a full percentage point below the prior cycle's peak?

But margin debt reached record levels in 2013, only to find it increasing through 2016 before dropping again. None of which resulted in a calamitous market crash as presumed in your article.

How does it make sense to suggest that a restroom policy whereby individual patrons are allowed to use their bathrooms absent a purchase is a fundamental change. Firstly, when did they not allow such activity? Just because one store had an incident doesn't mean that an unstated policy wasn't still in effect as a business practice. Secondly, which retailer is play sheriff at the entrance/exit to ensure patrons are not just browsing or loitering? Is it McDonalds. Is it Wendy's, is it Wal-Mart, Target etc. Of course none of these retailers are monitoring such activities. It's the difference between public relations of no consequence to battle a headline of the day from an incident in one location.

Nice insights. Thank you for sharing them. But I think the general takeaway that can be found in almost every historical metric that surrounds the notion of inflation is that's its an impossibility shy of a few fits here and there that ultimately lead to the inevitable record deflationary lows.