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The moment that financial-participants waited for this week finally arrived, and it came with something of a twist.
August’s consumer-price index came in close to expectations and reinforced traders’ expectations for a regular-size, 25-basis-point interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve next Wednesday. These would ordinarily be welcome developments for stock investors. Instead, stocks were falling on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA briefly plunging as much as 743.89 points, on the view that policy makers may be doing too little, too late to reduce borrowing costs. The fed funds rate has been at a 23-year high of 5.25%-5.5% for more than a year.
After Wednesday’s CPI data, fed-funds futures traders continued to mostly price in at least 100 basis points of rate cuts over the central bank’s final three meetings of this year, including the gathering that begins next week — and indicated they still see a larger-than-normal, 50-basis-point reduction occurring in November or December. It all adds up to the possibility that the central bank might already be behind the curve, raising questions about its ability to successfully navigate a soft landing for the economy.
The number of rate cuts being priced in “suggests recession fears are rising,” said Lawrence Gillum, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based chief fixed-income strategist for broker-dealer LPL Financial. “Our view is that the economy is slowing, but we don’t think it’s going to contract, and that the rates market is mispricing the amount of rate cuts that are going to take place. Rate cuts are going to be priced out, eventually, because we don’t see a recession occurring in the next few quarters, that’s for sure.’’
Wednesday’s market reaction offers an example of just how unusual the current trading environment is right now. Aside from CPI data, financial-market participants were also reacting to Tuesday night’s televised debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, with Harris seen as the winner — prompting a rethink of the so-called Trump trade that was supposed to benefit stocks in certain sectors and industries.
Read: The market has pronounced a winner from Tuesday’s debate, and it’s Kamala Harris
This post was originally published on Market Watch
