Key Developments in Developed Markets: Fed's Potential Pushback and Rate Cut Expectations"

Key events in developed markets and EMEA next week

There's growing evidence that tight monetary policy and restrictive credit conditions are having the desired effect on depressing inflation. However, neither the Federal Reserve nor Bank of England will want to endorse the recent ramping up of rate cut expectations in financial markets as both prepare to release decisions next week.

 

US: Pushback from the Fed

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to leave the Fed funds target range at 5.25-5.5% at next week’s FOMC meeting. Softer activity numbers, cooling labour data and benign inflation prints signal that monetary policy is probably restrictive enough to bring inflation sustainably down to 2% in coming months, a narrative that is being more vocally supported by key Federal Reserve officials. The bigger story is likely to be contained in the individual Fed member forecasts – how far will they look to back the market perceptions that major rate cuts are on their way? We strongly suspect there will be a lot of pushback here. The steep fall in Treasury yields in recent weeks is an easing of financial conditions on the economy and there is going to be some concern that this effectively unwinds some of the Fed rate hikes from earlier in the year. 

We expect the Fed to retain a relatively upbeat economic assessment with the same 50bp of rate cuts in 2024 they signalled in their September forecasts, albeit from a lower level given the final 25bp December hike they forecasted last time is not going to happen.

We think the Fed will eventually shift to a more dovish stance, but this may not come until late in the first quarter of 2024. The US economy continues to perform well for now and the jobs market remains tight, but there is growing evidence that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases and the associated tightening of credit conditions are starting to have the desired effect. We look for 150bp of rate cuts in 2024, with a further 100bp in early 2025.