The February employment report almost certainly means the Fed will no longer describe its policy intentions as "patient" at the conclusion of the March FOMC meeting. And it also keep a June rate hike in play. But for June to move from "in play" to "it's going to happen," I still feel the Fed needs a more on the inflation side. The key is the height of that inflation bar.
The headline NFP gain was a better-than-expected 295k with 18k upward adjustment for January. The 12-month moving average continues to trend higher:
Unemployment fell to 5.5%, which is the top of the central range for the Fed's estimate of NAIRU. Still, wage growth remains elusive:
Is wage growth sufficient to stay the Fed's hand? I am not so sure. I recently wrote:
My take is this: To get a reasonably sized consensus to support a rate hike, two conditions need to be met. One is sufficient progress toward full-employment with the expectation of further progress. I think that condition has already been met. The second condition is confidence that inflation will indeed trend toward target. That condition has not been met. To meet that condition requires at least one of the following sub-conditions: Rising core-inflation, rising market-based measures of inflation compensation, or accelerating wage growth. If any were to occur before June, I suspect it would be the accelerating wage growth.
I am less confident that we will see accelerating wage growth by June, although I should keep in mind we still have three more employment reports before that meeting. Note, however, low wage growth does not preclude a rate hike. The Fed hiked rates in 1994 in a weak wage growth environment:
And again in 2004 liftoff occurred on the (correct) forecast of accelerating wage growth:
So wage growth might not be there in June to support a rate hike. And, as I noted earlier this weaker, I have my doubts on whether core-inflation would support a rate hike either. That leaves us with market-based measures of inflation compensation. And at this point, that just might be the key:
If bond markets continue to reverse the oil-driven inflation compensation decline, the Fed may see a way clear to hiking rates in June. But the pace and timing of subsequent rate hikes would still be data dependent. I would anticipate a fairly slow, halting path of rate hikes in the absence of faster wage growth.
Bottom Line: "Patient" is out. Tough to justify with unemployment at the top of the Fed's central estimates of NAIRU. Pressure to begin hiking rates will intensify as unemployment heads lower. The inflation bar will fall, and Fed officials will increasingly look for reasons to hike rates rather than reasons to delay. They may not want to admit it, but I suspect one of those reasons will be fear of financial instability in the absence of tighter policy. June is in play.
