Tag: Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)

The Times They Are A' Changin'

Posted on by George Yacik

Talk about charter creep. This is more like a charter leap.

As we know well by now, the Federal Reserve’s famous “dual mandate” is to promote price stability and maximum sustainable employment. But as we also know, the Fed really has a third mandate, maintaining moderate long-term interest rates (don’t ask me why they still call it a dual mandate).

So it should be no surprise, then, that the Fed has now gone way beyond that dual (or treble) mandate by wholeheartedly injecting itself into what is really a political debate, namely climate change. And how ironic it is that it rose to the forefront during the same week that the U.S. withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Last week Fed officials were out in force, declaring that climate change would now be a major factor in not only how it regulates federally chartered commercial banks but also how it conducts U.S. monetary policy.

On Thursday, in a speech at the GARP Global Risk Forum, Kevin Stiroh, an executive vice president responsible for regulating banks at the New York Fed, said financial firms need to take the dangers and costs of climate change into their risk-management decisions.

“Climate change has significant consequences for the U.S. economy and financial sector through slowing productivity growth, asset revaluations, and sectoral reallocations of business activity,” he said. “The U.S. economy has experienced more than $500 billion in direct losses over the last five years due to climate and weather-related events.” Continue reading "The Times They Are A' Changin'" →

Happy Halloween

Posted on by George Yacik

The last week of October is likely to be an eventful one. Halloween is on Thursday, the last day of the month, and Major League Baseball will crown a new World Series champion. And, oh yes, the Federal Reserve will hold its next-to-last monetary policy meeting this year, at which it is expected to continue on its path of easing monetary policy in the face of not-so-terrible economic news that doesn’t appear to warrant another interest rate cut.

The Fed meeting begins on Tuesday and culminates on Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 EST, with a likely announcement that it is cutting its federal funds rate by 25 basis points for the third time in as many meetings. The Fed hasn’t cut rates this often since the financial crisis when the world economy and financial markets looked like the world was coming to an end. Now we’re looking at the U.S. economy weakening from about a 3% annual growth rate to about 2%, and the Fed is acting like its 2008 again.

Of course, the Fed may not be looking to do another rate cut for economic reasons, but because it has pretty much painted itself into a corner by practically promising the markets that yet another rate cut is coming. What would the market’s reaction be if the Fed decides on Wednesday to leave rates unchanged? No doubt it would be ugly, which is why I’m siding with the consensus market view that the Fed will indeed lower rates this week, whether it’s “data-driven” or not.

Speaking of data, Continue reading "Happy Halloween" →

What If They Had A Recession And Nobody Came?

Posted on by George Yacik

There are two main constituencies in the U.S. that are hoping for a recession. The financial markets, both stocks, and bonds seem to have a vested financial interest in there being one.

For the bond market, which has been the biggest rooter for a recession, a weak economy means lower loan demand and lower interest rates, which means higher bond prices. For the stock market, a weaker economy, although not necessarily a full-blown recession, promises more accommodation from the Federal Reserve and, therefore, lower interest rates, which generally translates into higher corporate earnings and, therefore, higher stock prices.

The Democrat Party and its allies in the press naturally want a recession simply because it makes it less likely that President Trump will be re-elected. So they are rooting strongly for a recession, although they can’t actually come out and say so.

The recession lobby got some fresh ammunition last week when the Institute for Supply Management’s purchasing managers’ indexes for September came out. They were some of the worst in years, which ignited a rally in the bond market.

On Tuesday, the ISM manufacturing index slipped further into contraction territory, dropping more than a point from 49.1 in August to 47.8, its lowest level since June 2009, during the Great Recession (there’s that word again).

Unfortunately for the pro-recession crowd, a lot of the rest of the economic numbers aren't telling the same story. The ISM’s index for the services sector – which covers about three-quarters of economic activity – also came in lower than expected, dropping nearly four points from 56.4 to 52.6, its slowest pace in three years. But it remained well in expansion mode (i.e., over 50). That part of the story got little attention. Continue reading "What If They Had A Recession And Nobody Came?" →

Pre-Fed Precious Metals Update

Posted on by Gary Tanashian

We review these metals as the media schleps all over itself trying to tell people why the Fed will cut 1/4, will cut 1/2, should not cut at all and/or why the president of these United States of America is on Twitter haranguing the Fed to be as disreputable as Mario Draghi and China’s central planners because they know how to play the game. It’s all a game after all, isn’t it Trump? You old currency warrior, you.

Copper daily is nesting on the SMA 50 but locked below resistance and the SMA 200. Still in bounce mode but very unspectacular.

copper

Copper weekly still looks pretty gross. It’s above critical support but locked below a ton of resistance. The 2016-2019 pattern also looks like a freak. I refuse to like industrial metals (or cyclical commodities in general) until I get some technical reason to like them. Continue reading "Pre-Fed Precious Metals Update" →

One Lump Or Two?

Posted on by George Yacik

With the financial markets already primed for a 25-basis-point cut at next week’s Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting, the talk has now shifted to the possibility that the Fed may go even further and reduce its benchmark federal funds rate by 50 basis points instead.

That speculation was fueled by New York Fed President John Williams, who exhorted an audience of the Central Bank Research Association in New York last week to “take swift action when faced with adverse economic conditions” and “keep interest rates lower for longer” when reducing rates.

“Don’t keep your powder dry—that is, move more quickly to add monetary stimulus than you otherwise might,” he added, which may have left some listeners wondering what year this was – 2008, when the Great Recession was just beginning, or 2019 when the economy is still growing. Either way, listeners on Wall Street were happy to hear it and immediately pushed stock prices higher.

The New York Fed subsequently walked back Williams’s comments, saying that he didn’t mean to suggest that the Fed was about to double-down on a rate increase next week, downplaying his comments as an “academic speech” and “not about potential policy actions at the upcoming FOMC meeting.”

But Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida swiftly echoed Williams’ comments, telling the Fox Business Network, “You don’t wait until the data turns decisively if you can afford to. If you need to [cut rates], you don’t need to wait until things get so bad to have a dramatic series of rate cuts.”

The only difference is that Williams described the economy as “pretty strong” – begging the question why the Fed feels it needs to lower rates at all, whether by 25 or 50 basis points – while Clarida implied that the economy is ready to hurtle over the cliff unless the Fed rides to the rescue.

Along comes Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren with a different take. Continue reading "One Lump Or Two?" →