June 21, 2021: – Hedge-fund legend David Tepper thinks the Federal Reserve did an excellent job, showing that policymakers are not asleep at the wheel.

On Thursday, the Appaloosa chief, known for bold calls and strong returns, told CNBC’s Scott Wapner that despite the plan of the Fed to move up its interest rate hike timetable, the stock market remains fine.

“I think the stock market is still fine for now,” Tepper told Wapner.

Tepper thinks the Fed won’t start tapering its quantitative easing bond-buying program until later this year, telling Wapner that it will be a good sign that the economy is in a perfect spot when it happens.

Many investors and traders fear that when the Fed does cut back on QE, the stock market will decline, who believed that such a move would be the start of central bank tightening, with interest rate increases not far behind.

On Thursday, Dow futures decreased modestly and then traded slightly lower at the open, one day after the 30-stock average closed off 265 points, or 0.8%, as the Fed indicated two rate hikes in the year 2023. In March, they had expected no rate increases until nearly the year 2024.

As expected, the Fed also left rates unchanged at around 0% levels and made no mention of adjusting the massive Covid-era bond-buying program of the central bank.

Fed critics have been saying that policymakers are not acting quickly enough to stamp out rising inflation in an economy that’s recovering so strongly from the depths of the Covid pandemic.

The Fed did raise its inflation estimate to 3.4%, a whole percentage point higher than the March projection. However, the post-June meeting policy statement reiterated that inflation pressures are “transitory,” even as the most recent data on wholesale and consumer prices showed inflation surging at a pace not seen in more than ten years.

The decade Treasury yield bounced around, trading on either side of 1.56%. The ten yields, which moves inversely to price, were just below 1.5% moments before the Fed announcements on Wednesday.

About a week before the March meeting of Fed, Tepper told CNBC’s Joe Kernen that it was tough to be bearish on stocks and that he thought the sell-off in Treasurys that drove yields higher was over.

Three months later, he was right on both counts. The Fed-driven stock market rally that ensued was called the “Tepper rally.”