Tim Duy's Fed Watch

December Still Very Much A Live Meeting

One of two things is going to happen. Either the US economy is or will soon be slowing on the back of already tighter financial conditions. Or the US economy will soon be slowing on the back of future tighter financial conditions as directed by the Federal Reserve.

In a worst case scenario, both of these things will happen.

And the odds of both of these things happening seems higher after this week's FOMC meeting. Rather than being a nonevent as expected, it was actually quite exciting. We learned that the majority of the FOMC remains wedded to the idea of a December rate hike. That was made very clear with this sentence:

In determining whether it will be appropriate to raise the target range at its next meeting, the Committee will assess progress--both realized and expected--toward its objectives of maximum employment and 2 percent inflation.

That was a fairly clear warning that December is really, really in play. No, really this time. They mean it. After all, a number of them are on record repeatedly saying that they expect to hike interest rates this year. I tend to wonder if they feel compelled to act on these statements? The opportunities to show their mettle are fairly limited at this point.  

It also seems as if Federal Reserve Governors Lael Brainard and Daniel Tarullo were schooled hard this week. They argued publicly that they did not see reason to raise rates this year. I doubt they changed their opinions - at least not privately. But they very clearly did not change any opinions on the FOMC. Indeed, one wonders if they only hardened their colleagues positions on a rate hike this year. Consider Paul Krugman's response to me:

Maybe, but it’s also worth noting the difference in perspective that comes from having your original intellectual home in international versus domestic macroeconomics. I would say that Brainard’s experience is dominated not so much by the Great Moderation as by the Asian financial crisis and Japan’s stagnation; internationally oriented macro types were aware earlier than most that Depression-type issues never went away. And if you read Brainard’s argument carefully, she devotes a lot of it to the drag America may be facing from weakness abroad and the stronger dollar, which acts as de facto monetary tightening

Krugman is right; I should have mentioned this. Regardless, note what key line was removed from the September statement:

Recent global economic and financial developments may restrain economic activity somewhat and are likely to put further downward pressure on inflation in the near term.

Downplaying these concerns appears to be an effort to cut the knees out from under Brainard. To be sure, US markets rebounded, but have we seen much in the last six weeks to so quickly remove global concerns? I am wary to believe so with data like these:

CRB spot raw industrial price index set new 6 year low this week. https://t.co/gN9Pcbhbua

— Caroline Baum (@cabaum1) October 28, 2015

In any event, it seems reasonable to believe that the bar for a rate hike at the next FOMC meeting is fairly low. Prior to the meeting I said this:

The middle range of closer to 150,000 jobs a month—a more lackluster reading similar to the past two months—is the gray area. This is the range in which the proper application of risk management principles becomes critical. In that range—a range I find likely—the degree to which Brainard & Co. shape the debate at this week’s meeting will determine the policy outcome in December, and likely beyond.

I am thinking we now we know how little Brainard shaped the debate. Lackluster numbers seem likely to suffice at this juncture. Hence why market expectations moved as they did:

The "hawkish" shift in hike expectations (yest => today)... Dec: 34% => 46% Jan: 41% => 54% Mar: 57% => 68% pic.twitter.com/1NLZwHgivE

— Charlie Bilello, CMT (@MktOutperform) October 28, 2015

 The willingness of the Fed to hike in the face of lackluster numbers is a bit disconcerting, to say the least. Lackluster numbers, by definition, indicate slower activity, and one would think that the Fed would like to see how that played out before piling on.  But assuming this from Jon Hilsenrath at the the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Fischer is among those more eager to raise rates.

It is easy to see how the Fed gets behind tighter policy. I don't know that Brainard could easily counter the gravitas of Fischer.

Bottom Line:  December stays on the table. Very much so, in fact. Indeed, in all reality the only reason market participants have not gone all in on December is because they recognize that the Fed has repeatedly cried "wolf" this year.  Makes one distrustful of the Fed's proclamations. At this juncture, my expectation is that only disappointing data prevents the Fed from moving in December. It will be interesting to see how well the Fed statement holds up to the light of this week's GDP report and the next two employment reports.

Brainard Drops A Policy Bomb

What if a Federal Reserve Governor drops a policy bomb in the woods and no one is there to hear it? Did it really make a noise? 

That's what happened today. While the bond market was closed and whatever financial journalists were left focusing their efforts on newly-minted Nobel Prize recipient Angus Deaton, Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard dropped a policy bomb with her speech to the National Association of Business Economists. It was nothing short of a direct challenge to Chair Janet Yellen and Vice Chair Stanley Fischer. Is was, as they say, a BFD.

That, at least, is my opinion. Consider, for example, Brainard's opening salvo:

The will-they-or-won't-they drumbeat has grown louder of late. To remove the suspense, I do not intend to make any calendar-based statements here today. Rather, I would like to give you a sense of the considerations that weigh on both sides of that debate and lay out the case for watching and waiting.

Wait, who is making calendar-based statements?  Yellen:

...these two judgments imply that the real interest rate consistent with achieving and then maintaining full employment in the medium run should rise gradually over time. This expectation, coupled with inherent lags in the response of real activity and inflation to changes in monetary policy, are the key reasons that most of my colleagues and I anticipate that it will likely be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate sometime later this year and to continue boosting short-term rates at a gradual pace thereafter as the labor market improves further and inflation moves back to our 2 percent objective.

and Fischer:

In the SEP, the Summary of Economic Projections prepared by FOMC participants in advance of the September meeting, most participants, myself included, anticipated that achieving these conditions would entail an initial increase in the federal funds rate later this year.

After essentially saying that such calendar-based guidance is beneath her, she says what she is going to do: Explain why policymakers should delay further. Note however this stands in sharp contrast with Yellen and Fischer. Their efforts have been spent on explaining why rates need to rise soon. Hers will be spent on why they do not.

After assessing the quality of the recovery, Brainard asserts:

In contrast to the considerable progress in the labor market, progress on the second leg of our dual mandate has been elusive. To be clear, I do not view the improvement in the labor market as a sufficient statistic for judging the outlook for inflation. A variety of econometric estimates would suggest that the classic Phillips curve influence of resource utilization on inflation is, at best, very weak at the moment. The fact that wages have not accelerated is significant, but more so as an indicator that labor market slack is still present and that workers' bargaining power likely remains weak. 

Recall that Yellen, in her most recent speech, made the Phillips Curve the primary basis for her case that rates will soon need to rise:

What, then, determines core inflation? Recalling figure 1, core inflation tends to fluctuate around a longer-term trend that now is essentially stable. Let me first focus on these fluctuations before turning to the trend. Economic theory suggests, and empirical analysis confirms, that such deviations of inflation from trend depend partly on the intensity of resource utilization in the economy--as approximated, for example, by the gap between the actual unemployment rate and its so-called natural rate, or by the shortfall of actual gross domestic product (GDP) from potential output. This relationship--which likely reflects, among other things, a tendency for firms' costs to rise as utilization rates increase--represents an important channel through which monetary policy influences inflation over the medium term, although in practice the influence is modest and gradual. Movements in certain types of input costs, particularly changes in the price of imported goods, also can cause core inflation to deviate noticeably from its trend, sometimes by a marked amount from year to year. Finally, a nontrivial fraction of the quarter-to-quarter, and even the year-to-year, variability of inflation is attributable to idiosyncratic and often unpredictable shocks.

Yellen concludes, after breaking down the inflation shortfall into its constituent parts, that the resource utilization component is now fairly small and will soon dissipate, having only the temporary components to worry about:

Although an accounting exercise like this one is always imprecise and will depend on the specific model that is used, I think its basic message--that the current near-zero rate of inflation can mostly be attributed to the temporary effects of falling prices for energy and non-energy imports--is quite plausible. If so, the 12-month change in total PCE prices is likely to rebound to 1-1/2 percent or higher in 2016, barring a further substantial drop in crude oil prices and provided that the dollar does not appreciate noticeably further.

Brainard, however, is not buying this story. Brainard's focus:

Although the balance of evidence thus suggests that long-term inflation expectations are likely to have remained fairly steady, the risks to the near-term outlook for inflation appear to be tilted to the downside, given the persistently low level of core inflation and the recent decline in longer-run inflation compensation, as well as the deflationary cross currents emanating from abroad--a subject to which I now turn.

While Yellen sees the risks weighted toward rebounding inflation, Brainard sees the opposite. Moreover, policymakers have been twiddling their thumbs as the world economy turns against them:

Over the past 15 months, U.S. monetary policy deliberations have been taking place against a backdrop of progressively gloomier projections of global demand. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has marked down 2015 emerging market and world growth repeatedly since April 2014.

While all of you have been arguing about when to raise rates, the case for raising rates has been falling apart! As a consequence:

Over the past year, a feedback loop has transmitted market expectations of policy divergence between the United States and our major trade partners into financial tightening in the U.S. through exchange rate and financial market channels. Thus, even as liftoff is coming into clearer view ahead, by some estimates, the substantial financial tightening that has already taken place has been comparable in its effect to the equivalent of a couple of rate increases.

Brainard buys into the view that recent activity in financial markets has already tightened monetary conditions. Later:

There is a risk that the intensification of international cross currents could weigh more heavily on U.S. demand directly, or that the anticipation of a sharper divergence in U.S. policy could impose restraint through additional tightening of financial conditions. For these reasons, I view the risks to the economic outlook as tilted to the downside. The downside risks make a strong case for continuing to carefully nurture the U.S. recovery--and argue against prematurely taking away the support that has been so critical to its vitality.

Not balanced, but to the downside. That calls for different risk management:

These risks matter more than usual because the ability to provide additional accommodation if downside risks materialize is, in practice, more constrained than the ability to remove accommodation more rapidly if upside risks materialize.

In effect, the Fed can't cut rates quickly, but they can raise rates quickly:

...many observers have suggested that the economy will soon begin to strain available resources without some monetary tightening. Because monetary policy acts with a lag, in this scenario, high rates of resource utilization may lead to a large buildup of inflationary pressures, a rise in inflation expectations and persistent inflation in excess of our 2 percent target. However, we have well-tested tools to address such a situation and plenty of policy room in which to use them.

Brainard is willing to risk a rapid rise in rates. Yellen is not. Indeed, quite the opposite. Yellen desperately wants a very slow pace of rate increases:

 If the FOMC were to delay the start of the policy normalization process for too long, we would likely end up having to tighten policy relatively abruptly to keep the economy from significantly overshooting both of our goals. Such an abrupt tightening would risk disrupting financial markets and perhaps even inadvertently push the economy into recession.

The more I think about it, the less I am worried about this issue. Suppose that the Fed needs raise rates at twice the pace they currently anticipate.  What does that mean? 25bp at every meeting instead of every other meeting? Is that really an "abrupt tightening?" Not sure that Yellen has a very strong argument here. Or one that would withstand repeated attacks from her peers.

I feel like I haven't scratched the surface on this speech, but I will cut to the chase: This is an outright challenge to the Yellen/Fischer view.

I think these three players are all products of their experience. Yellen received her Ph.D in 1971.  Fischer in 1969.  Both experienced the Great Inflation first hand. Brainard earned her Ph.D in 1989.  Her professional experience is dominated by the Great Moderation. 

I think Yellen wants to raise interest rates. I think Fischer wants to raise rates.  I think both believe the downward pressure on inflation due to labor market slack is minimal, and the Phillips Curve will soon assert itself. I think both do not find the risks as asymmetric as does Brainard. I think they believe the risk of inflation is actually quite high. Or, probably more accurately, that the risk of destabilizing inflation expectations is quite high. 

I think that Brainard knows this. I think that this speech is a very deliberate action by Brainard to let Yellen and Fischer know that she will not got quietly into the night if they push forward with their plans. I think that she is sending the message that they will not have just one dissent from a soon-to-be-replace regional president (Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans), but a more-difficult-to-ignore Fed governor still voting when January 1 rolls around.

And now that Brainard has laid down the gauntlet, it will look very, very bad for Yellen and Fischer if their plans go sideways. This is very likely the last big decision of their careers. They know what happened to Greenspan’s legacy. I doubt they want the same treatment. Why risk their reputations when the cost of waiting is a 25bp move every meeting instead of every other meeting? Is it worth it? 

Brad DeLong suggested the Fed commit to one of two policy messages:

I must say that they are not doing too well at the clear-communication part. I want to see one of following things in Fed statements:

1. We will begin raising interest rates in December at a pace of basis points per quarter, unless economic growth and inflation fall substantially short of our current forecast expectations.

2. We will delay raising interest rates until we are confident that it will not be appropriate to return them to the zero lower bound after liftoff.

If we had one of these, we would know where we stand.

But Stan Fischer's speech provides us with neither.

I think that Fischer wants the first option, but knows Brainard’s views, and hence knows that December is not a sure thing if Brainard can build momentum for her position. Hence the muddled message. Brainard could be the force that drives the Fed toward option number two. An option closer to that of Evans and Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Narayana Kocherlakota. That would be a game changer.

Bottom Line: This is the most exciting speech I have read in forever. Not necessarily for the content. But for the politics. Evans and Kocherlakota are no longer the lunatic fringe. This could be a real game changer that shifts the Fed toward the Evans view of the world, with no rate hike until mid-2016. Brainard muddied further the already murky December waters.

Fed Struggles With The High Water Mark

Gavyn Davies reviews the evidence on the apparent slowing of US economic activity and concludes:

So is the US slowdown for real? Yes, but it is not yet very severe — and some of it is the result of the temporary inventory correction, and some to the rising dollar. Unless it grows worse in the next few weeks, it is unlikely to dislodge the Fed from the path it has now firmly chosen.

This I think is broadly consistent with views on the FOMC and explains why many policymakers insist that a rate hike this year remains likely. Vice Chair Stanley Fischer was the latest to reiterate the point. Via his prepared remarks for the IMF:

In the SEP, the Summary of Economic Projections prepared by FOMC participants in advance of the September meeting, most participants, myself included, anticipated that achieving these conditions would entail an initial increase in the federal funds rate later this year.

They will want look through any near term GDP volatility, and discount volatility related to inventories. Look then to real final sales rather than GDP. Avoid getting caught up in the headline numbers; watch the underlying trends instead.

Still, there is a range of views on the FOMC, from Richmond Fed Jeffrey Lacker, who believes the Fed should already have raised rates, to Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Narayana Kocherlakota, who would like the Fed to consider a negative rate. And arguably even the center is not particularly committed to a particular policy path. To be sure, they like to talk tough, but every time they get ready to jump, they walk back from the edge.

Why the lack of conviction? Essentially, the economy is resting on what is likely its high water mark for growth in this cycle, leaving the Fed perplexed regarding their next move. They want the economy to slow from its current pace and glide into a soft landing. But acting too early will leave their job half finished and sow the seeds of the next recession. Acting too late, however, will yield the inflationary outcome they so fear. And they don't know the exact definitions of "too early" and "too late."

This chart (modified from Davies' version) illustrates the evolution of US growth since 2012:

In broad terms, consumption, investment, and government spending jointly accelerated during 2013. The external side of the economy offset some of this acceleration by first moving from a slightly positive contribution to none and then, beginning in 2014, a substantial negative contribution. The net effect is that overall economy largely normalize around a 2.5% growth rate in 2014 and remained there since.

That 2.5% growth is what the economy delivers given the combination of long-term factors (labor and productivity growth) and the current set of fiscal, monetary, and external conditions. The actual composition of output will evolve around that 2.5% rate. It is likely the high-water mark, in terms of growth, for this recovery. Faster growth likely requires a net easier combination of monetary and fiscal policy. Slower growth may already be locked in by past policy, or maybe the economy just moves generally sideways from here. 

Most important is to remember that monetary policymakers expect and want the economy to slow as it gently glides down to that mythical soft-landing. They aren't looking for faster growth. The current pace of growth will, in their view, force unemployment further below the natural rate next year than they are willing to tolerate. Hence the most recent employment reports are not necessarily unmitigated bad news from their perspective. New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley, via Bloomberg:

Dudley said the key to liftoff will be whether the labor market continues to improve, thereby putting more upward pressure on wages and inflation. Last month’s jobs report was “definitely weaker,” but even monthly gains of 120,000 or 150,000 are enough to continue to push the U.S. unemployment rate lower, he said. 

Or, more explicitly, from San Fransisco Federal Reserve President John Williams:

 The pace of employment growth, as well as the decline in the unemployment rate, has slowed a bit recently…but that’s to be expected. When unemployment was at its 10 percent peak during the height of the Great Recession, and as it struggled to come down during the recovery, we needed rapid declines to get the economy back on track. Now that we’re getting closer, the pace must start slowing to more normal levels. Looking to the future, we’re going to need at most 100,000 new jobs each month. In the mindset of the recovery, that sounds like nothing; but in the context of a healthy economy, it’s what’s needed for stable growth. (emphasis added)

Williams is looking for 2% growth in the second half of this year and next year. He expects the economy to slow, and believes it needs to slow to sustain healthy, long-run growth. But I don't think he knows exactly when and how much the Fed needs to tap the breaks to achieve that healthy growth. And he would not be alone - lack of consensus around the question is exactly why communication appears so muddled. They can't tell you what they don't know.

Further confusing the issue is the cat that Kocherlakota let out of the bag last week:

In mid-2013, the FOMC announced its intention to taper its ongoing asset purchase program. We can see that this announcement represented a dramatic change in policy from the sharp upward movements in long-term bond yields that it engendered. Personally, I interpret this policy change back in 2013 as the onset of what the Committee currently intends to be a long, gradual tightening cycle. As I noted earlier, we would typically expect that such a change in monetary policy should affect the economy with a lag of about 18 to 24 months. Viewed through this lens, the slow rate of labor market improvement in 2015 is not all that surprising. 

I believe the FOMC should take actions to facilitate a resumption of the 2014 improvement in the labor market by adopting a more accommodative policy stance...

As group, monetary policymakers have stuck by the line that "tapering is not tightening." Kocherlakota is not following the party line. He explicitly connects the dots and concludes that the current inflection point in the economy is the result of the tapering debate begun over two years ago. He essentially argues that had it not been for the taper and end of QE3, then financial conditions would be more accommodative today and the economy would not yet be at an inflection point. 

Kocherlakota is an outlier; he is not interested seeing the labor market throttle back just yet, fearing that such an outcome will end improvement in underemployment indicators. This would lock the economy into a suboptimal state of persistent excess slack and impede the return of inflation to the Fed's target. The general consensus on the FOMC is that such a goal can be achieved with more a more moderate pace of improvement in labor markets that holds unemployment modestly below the natural rate for a time. Hence he is alone in his view that more easing is needed at this time. Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans probably comes closest with his explicit calls to hold rates at current levels until the middle of 2016.

But even if the party line is that "tapering is not tightening," Kocherlakota must have planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of his colleagues. After all, it is a risk management exercise. If they are wrong, and Kocherlakota is right, then they will look like the dropped the ball if they pull the trigger too early. Something of a big risk to take when inflation remains persistently below trend and you lack traditional tools to respond to a renewed slowdown in activity.

Bottom Line: So where does all of this leave Fed policy? Confused, I think, like September when economists saw the outcome of that meeting as a coin toss. Don't expect communications to become much clearer. October is off the table (despite what Lacker might believe). They first need to decide if the last two months of jobs data were aberrations or signals of slowing job growth. They can't do that before October. And I am not confident they can do so by December. If we get two more reports hovering around 200k a month between now and December, matched with generally consistent data across other indicators, then December is on the table. That would indicate the economy is not coming off its high water mark without some help from the Fed. If jobs growth slows to 100k a month, again with a broad swath of generally consistent data, then we are looking at deep into 2016 before any hike. Around 150k is the gray area. They won't know if the economy is poised to head lower on its own, or if that is sufficient to contain inflationary pressures. They don't know if they should be tapping on the breaks or not. Risk management under the assumption of constrained inflation suggests they push off action until January or March. But they would not send such a clear message. Indeed, I suspect that more numbers like the last two will make the December meeting much like September's. That I fear is my current baseline - another close call in which the Fed concludes to take a pass.