No Hikes Please, We're Wall Street

Adam Shell for USA Today:

Four rate hikes may simply be too aggressive given the rough start to 2016.

Indeed, with the U.S. stock market off to one of its worst starts in history, oil prices wildly volatile, China fears still reverberating and growth worries on the rise, Wall Street is seriously second-guessing whether now really is the right time for the Fed to hike rates at the pace it has hinted at since mid-December when it raised short-term rates for the first time since 2006.

Phil Orlando, chief investment strategist at Federated Investors, says there is now a “zero chance” the Fed will tighten four times in 2016. He and the rest of Wall Street expect no change in short-term rates, currently pegged at 0.25% to 0.50%, today.

Kicking the easy money habit is harder than giving up heroin, and there’s no methadone for it.

UPDATE: Some see a rate cut coming, even though our first hike in years happened just last month.