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2021-12-09

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Markets Overestimate a ‘Powell Pivot’ at Their Peril

This isn’t 2018, when inflation wasn’t even a worry. The central bank can’t afford to back off meani

Markets Overestimate a ‘Powell Pivot’ at Their Peril

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{"i18n":{"language":"zh_CN"},"data":{"magic":2,"id":602599144,"tweetId":"602599144","gmtCreate":1639037602109,"gmtModify":1639037602189,"author":{"id":3572924792782965,"idStr":"3572924792782965","authorId":3572924792782965,"authorIdStr":"3572924792782965","name":"Zanetaghx","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/00c8d7266d0f1b04eec7f35954d54324","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[],"fanSize":5,"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body>Please like!</body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body>Please like!</body></html>","text":"Please like!","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":5,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://laohu8.com/post/602599144","repostId":1134664549,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1134664549","pubTimestamp":1639037303,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1134664549?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2021-12-09 16:08","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Markets Overestimate a ‘Powell Pivot’ at Their Peril","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1134664549","media":"Bloomberg","summary":"This isn’t 2018, when inflation wasn’t even a worry. The central bank can’t afford to back off meani","content":"This isn’t 2018, when inflation wasn’t even a worry. The central bank can’t afford to back off meaningful rate hikes&nbsp;this time.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/fcb1016c7a196ebbdf10450feea307bb\" tg-width=\"2000\" tg-height=\"1333\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">Jerome Powell will need to prioritize inflation over market performance. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg\nMore Haste, Less Speed?\nThere’s onekey assumption undergirding markets at present. Many are resigned to the notion that the Federal Reserve will speed up the process of tapering off its QE asset purchases, so that it can start raising rates in the new year to deal with what it now acknowledges to be a growing problem with inflation. But, and this is the critical&nbsp;assumption, it won’t have to hike rates too much, and can finish the jobstill below 2%.\nOn the Fed’s greater haste, the Bloomberg analysis of the probabilities implied by fed funds futures show how expectations have shifted in the last&nbsp;two months. As recently as November, there was seen to be minimal chance of a rate hike before June. Now, the chance of a hike at May’s meeting is well over one in two, and there is one-in-three chance of a rise&nbsp;as early as March:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/23a7d03bd32b12cc0bcc61236226c87d\" tg-width=\"969\" tg-height=\"544\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nThis helps&nbsp;explain the recent surge&nbsp;in shorter-term bond yields. But longer-term yields have fallen, significantly, despite ongoing elevated inflation forecasts. As this chart shows, 30-year Treasury yields have dropped more than 60 basis points&nbsp;since March, even as 30-year inflation forecasts remained unchanged:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/35494dfd7296b0323233cebdb55b7005\" tg-width=\"1200\" tg-height=\"675\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nSo the implicit expectation is that by moving more quickly and aggressively, the Fed will save itself from having to hike too far&nbsp;and make&nbsp;rates so expensive that they slow down the economy. Hence, many are now braced for a Fed&nbsp;announcement next week that it will accelerate its taper —&nbsp;probably even double the amount that it cuts back asset purchases each week, and be&nbsp;finished as early as March, rather than the more relaxed schedule taking&nbsp;until June.\nSomething along these lines wouldn’t&nbsp;have too great a market impact. But how safe is the assumption that the Fed won’t&nbsp;be hiking long into the future? Alan Ruskin, foreign exchange strategist at Deutsche Bank AG, suggests it isn’t:\n<blockquote>\n The ‘risk neutral rate’ based off short-term rate expectations is currently below 1.5%, while the Eurodollar strip implies a peak funds rate a little above 1.5% through 2027. If this is correct, a sub 1.75% terminal funds rate, would almost certainly imply a peak real fed funds rate solidly in negative territory for the first time since WW2 .&nbsp;At its heart, there is an implied assumption that all the Fed has to do is tap the fed funds brake a mere 150bps, and the economy will slow sufficiently to break the inflation cycle.\n</blockquote>\nTo put this in historical perspective, over the four decades since price rises peaked under Paul Volcker, inflation has quite often exceeded the fed funds rate (meaning that the real fed funds rate is negative), but all hiking cycles have ended with the fed funds rate above inflation:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/efd4426235eb60c638b4549c0ac15fc1\" tg-width=\"1200\" tg-height=\"675\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nTo look at it another way, Fed governors are much influenced by the “Taylor Rule” that&nbsp;posits&nbsp;a central bank’s target rate should be set according to the variation between inflation and its target, and the variation between growth in gross domestic product&nbsp;and its target. Since the summer of last year, the rule&nbsp;forecast for the fed funds rate, as calculated by Bloomberg, has shot up and now exceeds the actual rate by the most in four decades:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/86fc05498f043e1ece4db4c1cd756131\" tg-width=\"1200\" tg-height=\"675\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nRuskin comments that this&nbsp;shows how far the current Fed approach&nbsp;has moved out of sync with prior policy and demonstrates “how much potential catch-up tightening is needed.”&nbsp;With inflation proving a tougher nut to crack&nbsp;than in decades, this further argues for pushing up real rates well into positive territory. Such an outcome is not reflected by present market calculations.\nWhy so much&nbsp;optimism&nbsp;that the hiking will still stop so soon?&nbsp;The key piece of evidence is the “dot plot” in which the Fed publishes its governors’ predictions where rates will move in the future. The latest, published at the Federal Open Market Committee meeting in September, shows a consensus that the “longer-run” target rate (beyond 2024) should be 2.5%. The highest dots, placed by two FOMC members, call for a peak at 3%. Meanwhile, most of the FOMC don’t think rates will go beyond 1.8% by the end of 2024. That’s higher than the market implicitly expects, but&nbsp;gives some comfort that the Fed doesn’t think it will need to keep piling on pain until rates exceed inflation.\nBut next week, we’ll&nbsp;hear from the FOMC again, and they’ll&nbsp;publish a last dot plot for the year.&nbsp;William Dudley, former governor of the New York Fed, writes for Bloomberg Opinion&nbsp;that the market could be in for a surprise. He says:\n<blockquote>\n For 2022, I expect a median forecast of 0.8%. This would signal three 0.25-percentage-point increases next year – not so many as to require a rate hike in March, but enough to be consistent with the faster taper and the unemployment and inflation outlook.\n</blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n For 2023, I expect officials to project four more rate hikes, taking the median target rate to 1.8% a year earlier than in the September projections. Such gradual, consistent tightening makes sense once the Fed gets started. But policymakers aren’t likely to anticipate moving more quickly as long as they project inflation to remain below 2.5%.\n</blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n For 2024, I expect the projected target rate to reach the 2.5% level judged as neutral. Anything less seems hard to justify, given that the economy will have been running beyond full employment and above the Fed’s 2% inflation target for several years.\n</blockquote>\nDudley adds that the market estimate of a 1.5% highest rate is “well below what common sense would dictate.”&nbsp;His former colleagues on the FOMC are currently in “purdah,” avoiding public comment in the run-up to the meeting. It would be well to take this piece as a very serious attempt to force the market’s expectations upwards.\nWhy might the Fed be able to be more lenient? Purely economic reasons could&nbsp;include a belief that inflationary pressure will soon cancel itself out, or that growth is sufficiently tenuous that the Fed will soon have to stay its hand. But this could be dangerous talk.\nThe Fed is arguably a long way behind the curve. The U.S. recovery has hummed along far&nbsp;more impressively than in Europe or Asia, and yet the stimulus that the economy has received is far greater. If we take broad “M2” money as a yardstick for the amount of liquidity in the economy, it’s&nbsp;clear that the Fed has trodden on the accelerator for much longer than other central banks. In the following chart, total M2 is rebased to the beginning of 2020 for the U.S., Eurozone, U.K., Japan and China. The Fed has been more aggressive throughout. The European Central Bank, the People’s Bank of China and particularly the Bank of Japan have already started to rein in the money supply:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/fab2cecb19315eaa1306b09cffc62e93\" tg-width=\"1200\" tg-height=\"675\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nThis suggests that the Fed may well have to do far more work to slow things down than other central banks. It might also imply that the strength of the American recovery owes a lot to the Fed’s exceptional generosity.\nIt’s interesting to follow this chart with the relative performance of stocks in the U.S., the rest of the developed markets, and emerging markets this year. All have rebounded nicely in the last few days in response to encouraging news about the omicron variant. But the gap between U.S. performance is dramatic and widening:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0bccc807e4e8e57fd4cfef2816f3c897\" tg-width=\"1200\" tg-height=\"675\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nMichael Howell of CrossBorder Capital Ltd. in London suggests the Fed is “both ‘behind the curve’ on inflation and&nbsp;‘behind the crowd’ in tightening policy,”&nbsp;and offers this dramatic illustration of just how much more aggressive it&nbsp;has been than in the 2008-10 period, when it first resorted to QE asset purchases. It uses CrossBorder’s index of total liquidity:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b96dd44feef36c93f2a83bc78f4ba0d3\" tg-width=\"490\" tg-height=\"577\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nHowell also offers this illustration of how asset purchases have moved over time. While the Fed has only just embarked on tapering, the other four big central banks have already cut back very significantly on&nbsp;asset purchases:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/88bf9990366e512a42c7f68e5e28192c\" tg-width=\"567\" tg-height=\"575\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nAll this suggests that the Fed will need to work very hard to rein in liquidity and calm inflation down once more. So why would markets expect Jerome Powell and his colleagues to relent early? The most popular case is that they will be forced into a “Powell pivot” and step back if they find themselves triggering a fall in the stock market, or a sharp economic downturn. This blueprint is taken from&nbsp;what happened in late 2018. But it&nbsp;ignores the fact that there is plenty of room for assets to fall from the current dizzy levels, and that inflation is now a very serious problem while it wasn’t even an issue three years ago. If the Fed loses its nerve, we could expect a fall for the dollar, which would worsen inflation. In very strong language, Howell&nbsp;argues the following:\n<blockquote>\n Some policy catch-up looks&nbsp;inevitable, but, like in the 1970s, we&nbsp;believe the current Fed lacks the\n</blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n necessary fortitude to tackle the&nbsp;inflation problem. Consequently,&nbsp;inflation will persist, with the US&nbsp;dollar potentially in the firing-line.&nbsp;We recognise that Chair Powell is&nbsp;probably not a Paul Volcker on\n</blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n inflation, but we also worry that&nbsp;President Biden is a Jimmy Carter&nbsp;for the dollar.\n</blockquote>\nThat might be taking things a little too far. But the risks are serious enough,&nbsp;and plenty of people are warning about them. There is a very real chance that Powell&nbsp;will soon have to get everyone ready for fed funds rates to keep rising until they are comfortably above the rate of inflation. That will not be popular.\nHow the Other Half Lives\nThis conversation would look&nbsp;to some other central banks as though it comes from another planet. Inflationary pressures in a number of emerging markets —&nbsp;across the world — have already forced rates up. The chances are that the bankers&nbsp;will need to keep hiking until they’ve&nbsp;squeezed much of the life out of their economies.\nTwo central banks raised their target rates Wednesday. Poland’s hiked by 50 basis points&nbsp;—&nbsp;and that still left its real target rate deeply negative:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/1d7eb25bb23d18e510b875750e9f26a8\" tg-width=\"1200\" tg-height=\"675\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nIn emerging markets, lacking the “exorbitant privilege” of the dollar, rates seldom drop below the level of inflation. It’s hard to see how Poland can avoid raising rates much further.\nMeanwhile, Brazil hiked by 150 basis points, still leaving&nbsp;its benchmark Selic rate about 150 basis points&nbsp;below the level of inflation. The Selic now stands at 9.25%. When inflation was last this high, in early 2016, the Selic was 14.25%. In 2002 and 2003, the previous occasion when inflation topped its current level, the Selic was eventually raised&nbsp;as high as 26.5%:\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/03d9adfce04686cd9ff9b3d125ba2249\" tg-width=\"1200\" tg-height=\"675\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nCompounding the misery for the emerging world’s central bankers is that if the Fed does indeed tighten aggressively,&nbsp;expect&nbsp;further capital flight toward the dollar. These are serious “global imbalances,” to use a phrase&nbsp;in vogue before the Great Financial Crisis. It’s alarming to contemplate what the world will need to do to regain equilibrium.\nSurvival Tips\nInternational travel grows ever more challenging. I’ve booked my flight to London, and my Covid test and my spot to self-isolate when I arrive. As there aren’t enough facilities in Heathrow, this already means that I need to take a trip in a taxi to a shopping mall to have my test before I start self-isolating, which seems a tad self-defeating.\nNow, it is revealed that&nbsp;the British will move to “Plan B”&nbsp;almost the moment I arrive, and ask people to work from home “if they can.”&nbsp;The proposed measures sound draconian until you look at the details. Masks will be mandatory in places of worship, theaters and cinemas, as well as shops and public transport, but not in pubs or restaurants or in places where it’s impractical to wear them (such as choir practice or a session at the gym). Which implies that if you want to sing in church you can take your mask off. However, in schools, masks are only “strongly advised.”&nbsp;The prime minister has expressed hope that Nativity plays go ahead as planned. Universities are to continue with in-person seminars and lectures next week.\nI have no intention of breaking any rules, and I can see the sense in heightening vigilance when Britain already has a nasty wave of infections and omicron appears to have established itself in England. But it’s hard to take these particular rules seriously. As far as I can see, they call for me to avoid the office “if I can,”&nbsp;but permit me to play a brutal game of unmasked rugby, enjoy a hearty sing-song with the lads, and then embark on a night-long unmasked pub crawl through the most louche and crowded drinking places that London has to offer. So maybe that’s what I should do? All tips on how to survive under Britain’s terrifying “Plan B” gratefully accepted.","source":"lsy1584095487587","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Markets Overestimate a ‘Powell Pivot’ at Their Peril</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nMarkets Overestimate a ‘Powell Pivot’ at Their Peril\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-12-09 16:08 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-09/markets-overestimate-a-powell-pivot-on-inflation-to-prop-up-growth-assets?srnd=premium-asia>Bloomberg</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nThis isn’t 2018, when inflation wasn’t even a worry. The central bank can’t afford to back off meaningful rate hikes this time.\nJerome Powell will need to prioritize inflation over market performance....\n\n<a href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-09/markets-overestimate-a-powell-pivot-on-inflation-to-prop-up-growth-assets?srnd=premium-asia\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-09/markets-overestimate-a-powell-pivot-on-inflation-to-prop-up-growth-assets?srnd=premium-asia","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1134664549","content_text":"This isn’t 2018, when inflation wasn’t even a worry. The central bank can’t afford to back off meaningful rate hikes this time.\nJerome Powell will need to prioritize inflation over market performance. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg\nMore Haste, Less Speed?\nThere’s onekey assumption undergirding markets at present. Many are resigned to the notion that the Federal Reserve will speed up the process of tapering off its QE asset purchases, so that it can start raising rates in the new year to deal with what it now acknowledges to be a growing problem with inflation. But, and this is the critical assumption, it won’t have to hike rates too much, and can finish the jobstill below 2%.\nOn the Fed’s greater haste, the Bloomberg analysis of the probabilities implied by fed funds futures show how expectations have shifted in the last two months. As recently as November, there was seen to be minimal chance of a rate hike before June. Now, the chance of a hike at May’s meeting is well over one in two, and there is one-in-three chance of a rise as early as March:\n\nThis helps explain the recent surge in shorter-term bond yields. But longer-term yields have fallen, significantly, despite ongoing elevated inflation forecasts. As this chart shows, 30-year Treasury yields have dropped more than 60 basis points since March, even as 30-year inflation forecasts remained unchanged:\n\nSo the implicit expectation is that by moving more quickly and aggressively, the Fed will save itself from having to hike too far and make rates so expensive that they slow down the economy. Hence, many are now braced for a Fed announcement next week that it will accelerate its taper — probably even double the amount that it cuts back asset purchases each week, and be finished as early as March, rather than the more relaxed schedule taking until June.\nSomething along these lines wouldn’t have too great a market impact. But how safe is the assumption that the Fed won’t be hiking long into the future? Alan Ruskin, foreign exchange strategist at Deutsche Bank AG, suggests it isn’t:\n\nThe ‘risk neutral rate’ based off short-term rate expectations is currently below 1.5%, while the Eurodollar strip implies a peak funds rate a little above 1.5% through 2027. If this is correct, a sub 1.75% terminal funds rate, would almost certainly imply a peak real fed funds rate solidly in negative territory for the first time since WW2 . At its heart, there is an implied assumption that all the Fed has to do is tap the fed funds brake a mere 150bps, and the economy will slow sufficiently to break the inflation cycle.\n\nTo put this in historical perspective, over the four decades since price rises peaked under Paul Volcker, inflation has quite often exceeded the fed funds rate (meaning that the real fed funds rate is negative), but all hiking cycles have ended with the fed funds rate above inflation:\n\nTo look at it another way, Fed governors are much influenced by the “Taylor Rule” that posits a central bank’s target rate should be set according to the variation between inflation and its target, and the variation between growth in gross domestic product and its target. Since the summer of last year, the rule forecast for the fed funds rate, as calculated by Bloomberg, has shot up and now exceeds the actual rate by the most in four decades:\n\nRuskin comments that this shows how far the current Fed approach has moved out of sync with prior policy and demonstrates “how much potential catch-up tightening is needed.” With inflation proving a tougher nut to crack than in decades, this further argues for pushing up real rates well into positive territory. Such an outcome is not reflected by present market calculations.\nWhy so much optimism that the hiking will still stop so soon? The key piece of evidence is the “dot plot” in which the Fed publishes its governors’ predictions where rates will move in the future. The latest, published at the Federal Open Market Committee meeting in September, shows a consensus that the “longer-run” target rate (beyond 2024) should be 2.5%. The highest dots, placed by two FOMC members, call for a peak at 3%. Meanwhile, most of the FOMC don’t think rates will go beyond 1.8% by the end of 2024. That’s higher than the market implicitly expects, but gives some comfort that the Fed doesn’t think it will need to keep piling on pain until rates exceed inflation.\nBut next week, we’ll hear from the FOMC again, and they’ll publish a last dot plot for the year. William Dudley, former governor of the New York Fed, writes for Bloomberg Opinion that the market could be in for a surprise. He says:\n\nFor 2022, I expect a median forecast of 0.8%. This would signal three 0.25-percentage-point increases next year – not so many as to require a rate hike in March, but enough to be consistent with the faster taper and the unemployment and inflation outlook.\n\n\nFor 2023, I expect officials to project four more rate hikes, taking the median target rate to 1.8% a year earlier than in the September projections. Such gradual, consistent tightening makes sense once the Fed gets started. But policymakers aren’t likely to anticipate moving more quickly as long as they project inflation to remain below 2.5%.\n\n\nFor 2024, I expect the projected target rate to reach the 2.5% level judged as neutral. Anything less seems hard to justify, given that the economy will have been running beyond full employment and above the Fed’s 2% inflation target for several years.\n\nDudley adds that the market estimate of a 1.5% highest rate is “well below what common sense would dictate.” His former colleagues on the FOMC are currently in “purdah,” avoiding public comment in the run-up to the meeting. It would be well to take this piece as a very serious attempt to force the market’s expectations upwards.\nWhy might the Fed be able to be more lenient? Purely economic reasons could include a belief that inflationary pressure will soon cancel itself out, or that growth is sufficiently tenuous that the Fed will soon have to stay its hand. But this could be dangerous talk.\nThe Fed is arguably a long way behind the curve. The U.S. recovery has hummed along far more impressively than in Europe or Asia, and yet the stimulus that the economy has received is far greater. If we take broad “M2” money as a yardstick for the amount of liquidity in the economy, it’s clear that the Fed has trodden on the accelerator for much longer than other central banks. In the following chart, total M2 is rebased to the beginning of 2020 for the U.S., Eurozone, U.K., Japan and China. The Fed has been more aggressive throughout. The European Central Bank, the People’s Bank of China and particularly the Bank of Japan have already started to rein in the money supply:\n\nThis suggests that the Fed may well have to do far more work to slow things down than other central banks. It might also imply that the strength of the American recovery owes a lot to the Fed’s exceptional generosity.\nIt’s interesting to follow this chart with the relative performance of stocks in the U.S., the rest of the developed markets, and emerging markets this year. All have rebounded nicely in the last few days in response to encouraging news about the omicron variant. But the gap between U.S. performance is dramatic and widening:\n\nMichael Howell of CrossBorder Capital Ltd. in London suggests the Fed is “both ‘behind the curve’ on inflation and ‘behind the crowd’ in tightening policy,” and offers this dramatic illustration of just how much more aggressive it has been than in the 2008-10 period, when it first resorted to QE asset purchases. It uses CrossBorder’s index of total liquidity:\n\nHowell also offers this illustration of how asset purchases have moved over time. While the Fed has only just embarked on tapering, the other four big central banks have already cut back very significantly on asset purchases:\n\nAll this suggests that the Fed will need to work very hard to rein in liquidity and calm inflation down once more. So why would markets expect Jerome Powell and his colleagues to relent early? The most popular case is that they will be forced into a “Powell pivot” and step back if they find themselves triggering a fall in the stock market, or a sharp economic downturn. This blueprint is taken from what happened in late 2018. But it ignores the fact that there is plenty of room for assets to fall from the current dizzy levels, and that inflation is now a very serious problem while it wasn’t even an issue three years ago. If the Fed loses its nerve, we could expect a fall for the dollar, which would worsen inflation. In very strong language, Howell argues the following:\n\nSome policy catch-up looks inevitable, but, like in the 1970s, we believe the current Fed lacks the\n\n\nnecessary fortitude to tackle the inflation problem. Consequently, inflation will persist, with the US dollar potentially in the firing-line. We recognise that Chair Powell is probably not a Paul Volcker on\n\n\ninflation, but we also worry that President Biden is a Jimmy Carter for the dollar.\n\nThat might be taking things a little too far. But the risks are serious enough, and plenty of people are warning about them. There is a very real chance that Powell will soon have to get everyone ready for fed funds rates to keep rising until they are comfortably above the rate of inflation. That will not be popular.\nHow the Other Half Lives\nThis conversation would look to some other central banks as though it comes from another planet. Inflationary pressures in a number of emerging markets — across the world — have already forced rates up. The chances are that the bankers will need to keep hiking until they’ve squeezed much of the life out of their economies.\nTwo central banks raised their target rates Wednesday. Poland’s hiked by 50 basis points — and that still left its real target rate deeply negative:\n\nIn emerging markets, lacking the “exorbitant privilege” of the dollar, rates seldom drop below the level of inflation. It’s hard to see how Poland can avoid raising rates much further.\nMeanwhile, Brazil hiked by 150 basis points, still leaving its benchmark Selic rate about 150 basis points below the level of inflation. The Selic now stands at 9.25%. When inflation was last this high, in early 2016, the Selic was 14.25%. In 2002 and 2003, the previous occasion when inflation topped its current level, the Selic was eventually raised as high as 26.5%:\n\nCompounding the misery for the emerging world’s central bankers is that if the Fed does indeed tighten aggressively, expect further capital flight toward the dollar. These are serious “global imbalances,” to use a phrase in vogue before the Great Financial Crisis. It’s alarming to contemplate what the world will need to do to regain equilibrium.\nSurvival Tips\nInternational travel grows ever more challenging. I’ve booked my flight to London, and my Covid test and my spot to self-isolate when I arrive. As there aren’t enough facilities in Heathrow, this already means that I need to take a trip in a taxi to a shopping mall to have my test before I start self-isolating, which seems a tad self-defeating.\nNow, it is revealed that the British will move to “Plan B” almost the moment I arrive, and ask people to work from home “if they can.” The proposed measures sound draconian until you look at the details. Masks will be mandatory in places of worship, theaters and cinemas, as well as shops and public transport, but not in pubs or restaurants or in places where it’s impractical to wear them (such as choir practice or a session at the gym). Which implies that if you want to sing in church you can take your mask off. However, in schools, masks are only “strongly advised.” The prime minister has expressed hope that Nativity plays go ahead as planned. Universities are to continue with in-person seminars and lectures next week.\nI have no intention of breaking any rules, and I can see the sense in heightening vigilance when Britain already has a nasty wave of infections and omicron appears to have established itself in England. But it’s hard to take these particular rules seriously. As far as I can see, they call for me to avoid the office “if I can,” but permit me to play a brutal game of unmasked rugby, enjoy a hearty sing-song with the lads, and then embark on a night-long unmasked pub crawl through the most louche and crowded drinking places that London has to offer. So maybe that’s what I should do? All tips on how to survive under Britain’s terrifying “Plan B” gratefully accepted.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":590,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"CN","currentLanguage":"CN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"andRepostAutoSelectedFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":11,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ZH_CN"},"commentList":[],"hasMoreComment":false,"orderType":2}