FED, EZB, BOJ - Aktuelle Geldpolitik und ihre Wirkung auf die Märkte

[Bärenbulle]

@Limit

vor 3 Stunden von Tordal:

Magst du das ein wenig erläutern für die VWL weniger Gebildeten? Zerohedge ist schon ein recht kompliziertes Kauderwelsch 

Man könnte auch sagen, erstmal gut für Investoren und alle Assetklassen, da der Markt anscheinend keine dauerhafte Inflation (mehr) erwartet. Wenn man es pessimistisch sehen will, kann man aber natürlich unken, dass die FED zunehmend "behind the curve" kommt, weil Sie der Inflationsentwicklung tatenlos zusieht.

 

Aber für eine agressive Positionierung ist es erstmal ein positives Signal.

[Bärenbulle]

Zukunftsweisend: die BOJ und der Topix.

 

vor 2 Minuten von Bärenbulle:

In First Since 2016, Japanese Investors Panic After Stocks Tumble... And BOJ Refuses To Buy ETFs

 

Zerohedge

[Bärenbulle]

Zitat

So far, the recovery has been led by a sharp rebound in consumption and an initial pick-up in capex. The ongoing recovery in personal incomes and the elevated excess saving stock suggest that consumption growth will be sustained. In the next leg, we believe that the strong recovery in aggregate demand will drive a red-hot capex cycle. Global investment will rise to 121% of pre-recession levels by end-2022, with US investment at 116% of pre-recession levels by the end of next year, a threshold that took 40 quarters to reach in the last cycle.

Indeed, if low growth and lowflation characterised the macro environment post-2010, this is emerging as an environment of high growth and higher inflation, diminishing the risk of secular stagnation.

 

 

In the US, this translates to a growth environment where GDP will be 3pp above its pre-COVID-19 path by end-2022 and underlying core PCE inflation (adjusted for base effects) rises above 2%Y from March 2022. The Fed, which is now aiming for inflation averaging 2%Y and maximum employment, should remain accommodative. Our chief US economist Ellen Zentner expects the Fed to signal its intention to taper asset purchases at the September FOMC meeting, to announce it in March 2022 and to start tapering from April 2022. On our forecasts, rate hikes begin in 3Q23, after inflation remains at or above 2%Y for some time and the labour market reaches maximum employment.

Quelle: Morgan Stanley (via ZeroHedge)

[Bärenbulle]

Zitat

Fed Alert: Overnight Reverse Repo Usage Soars Above Covid Crisis Highs

 

In today's FOMC Minutes there was a brief section that received little focus amid the broader analysis of the Fed's tapering, inflation language, yet which could be far more important in coming weeks in light of the violent move higher in overnight reverse repo usage.

This is what the Fed said in its discussion of money market rates and the Fed's balance sheet:

Reserve balances increased further this intermeeting period to a record level of $3.9 trillion. The effective federal funds rate was steady at 7 basis points. However, amid ongoing strong demand for safe short-term investments and reduced Treasury bill supply, the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) stood at 1 basis point throughout the period. The overnight reverse repurchase agreement (ON RRP) facility continued to effectively support policy implementation, and take-up peaked at more than $100 billion. A modest amount of trading in overnight repurchase agreement (repo) markets occurred at negative rates, although this development appeared to largely reflect technical factors. The SOMA manager noted that downward pressure on overnight rates in coming months could result in conditions that warrant consideration of a modest adjustment to administered rates and could ultimately lead to a greater share of Federal Reserve balance sheet expansion being channeled into ON RRP and other Federal Reserve liabilities. Although few survey respondents expected an adjustment to administered rates at the current meeting, more than half expected an adjustment by the end of the June  FOMC meeting."

 

This language confirms what we said last night when we discussed the spike in overnight reverse repo usage as part of the coming QE endgame...

... and where we quoted from former Fed staffer Zoltan Pozsar, who warned that "The heavy use of the o/n RRP facility tells us that foreign banks too are now chock-full of reserves."

We concluded with the following bottom line: "keep a close eye on the daily reverse repo facility usage: at the rate it is rising it may soon surpass its all time high of $475BN reached at the end of 2015. At that moment the Fed will have no choice but to start the long overdue "tapering talk."

 

And just in case there was confusion, we elaborated that "it also means that every tick higher in RRP usage means we are that much closer to the next, and far more violent, taper tantrum."

Which is why the biggest news of the day may not be the crash in cryptos or even the Fed Minutes, but what the Fed published at 1:15pm ET when it revealed that in the latest overnight repo, 43 counterparties parked reserves worth $294 billion with the Fed, a number which not only surpassed the March 2020 covid crisis highs, but was the highest since 2017!

As Pozsar noted on Monday, "use of the facility has never been this high outside of quarter-end turns, and the fact that the use of the facility is this high on a sunny day mid-quarter means that banks dont have the balance sheet to warehouse any more reserves at current spread levels."

 

Translation: the Fed is taking Treasurys out of the market through QE purchases and putting them right back in via the RRP

 

Not only does this impair the proper functioning of the repo market which is rapidly running out of collateral and is forced to unwind what it just got from the Fed back to the Fed, it also means that while the Fed still has plenty of assets to monetize courtesy of the Treasury's breakneck debt issuance spree, the banks that end up holding the resulting excess reserves are running out of space and are forced to park these brand new reserves right back with the Fed in the form of the O/N RRP.

In short: the US financial system is starting to groan at every incremental new reserve created by the Fed's QE... and considering that there is at least $1 trillion more in QE to go, even with tapering, things could turn ugly soon.

This, much more than any flip-flopping commentary from the Fed, confirms that we are rapidly approaching a critical moment when the Fed will no longer be able to conduct $120BN in QE every month, as sooner or later someone will figure out that the Fed buying up hundreds of billions in securities only to turn around the then repo out the resulting reserves each and every day, amounts to outright debt monetization with potentially calamitous consequences for yields and the US dollar.

Zerohedge

 

Goldman sieht den Zeitplan wie folgt:

[Thatsme]

Wir befinden uns aktuell im längsten Bullenmarkt der gesamten US-Weltgeschichte. 

 

Habe das Gefühl, immer wenn Aktien crashen oder die Konjunktur in Richtung Depression geht, wird extrem viel Geld in den Markt gepumpt um ihn am Leben zu halten. Die natürliche Konjunkturen werden ausgehebelt. 

 

Wie lange kann das noch gut gehen? 

[HalloAktie]

Leider ziemlich lange- schau nach Japan.

[Ginnie]

Hallo zusammen,

 

meine Frage richtet sich an die Forum-Mitglieder, die sich mit Geldpolitik und geldpolitische Instrumente auskennen.

 

Von der EZB Seite klingt es so, als würde der Nullzins Politik noch einige Zeit anhalten:

https://www.wiwo.de/politik/konjunktur/geldpolitik-die-ezb-ist-auf-dem-weg-in-den-ewigen-nullzins/27446574.html

 

Der deutsche Bundesbank Chef stimmte bei dem Entschluss dagegen:

https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/ezb-bundesbank-chef-jens-weidmann-stimmte-gegen-ezb-beschluesse-a-74aaec96-b3ec-4bf7-bb76-07b830931756

 

Meine Frage ist, ob hier Deutschland irgendwelche Instrumente hat davon abzuweichen oder die Möglichkeit hat (wodurch auch immer) diesen ein Stück weit zu umgehen? Meines Verständnisses nach, da wir keine Währungshohheit mehr haben, müssen wir uns der Entscheidung der EZB vollständig fügen. Ist das korrekt?

[Schwachzocker]

vor einer Stunde von Ginnie:

...

Meine Frage ist, ob hier Deutschland irgendwelche Instrumente hat davon abzuweichen oder die Möglichkeit hat (wodurch auch immer) diesen ein Stück weit zu umgehen? Meines Verständnisses nach, da wir keine Währungshohheit mehr haben, müssen wir uns der Entscheidung der EZB vollständig fügen. Ist das korrekt?

Man kann sich seine Währungshoheit zurückholen, indem man aus der Währungsunion austritt. Aber dann wäre finanziell wohl eine Menge zu regeln (Stichwort: Target-Salden) mit entsprechenden Konsequenzen, die vielleicht auch nicht schön sind.

Ansonsten muss man sich wohl fügen.

 

Am 2.7.2021 um 01:54 von Thatsme:

Wir befinden uns aktuell im längsten Bullenmarkt der gesamten US-Weltgeschichte. 

 

Habe das Gefühl, immer wenn Aktien crashen oder die Konjunktur in Richtung Depression geht, wird extrem viel Geld in den Markt gepumpt um ihn am Leben zu halten. Die natürliche Konjunkturen werden ausgehebelt. 

 

Wie lange kann das noch gut gehen? 

Was sollte denn passieren und warum?

[Thatsme]

Am 24.7.2021 um 18:23 von Schwachzocker:

Was sollte denn passieren und warum?

Die Unternehmen werden nicht selektiert "survival of the fittest". Zombieunternehmen bleiben bestehen. Investoren die nach 2008 eingestiegen sind, haben nie einen richtigen Bärenmarkt erlebt. Denke, wenn es doch dazu kommen könnte, würde es ziemlich das Vertrauen in die Börse zerstören. 

 

Und S&P500 ist extrem überbewertet :/

[wpf-leser]

Am 26.7.2021 um 23:04 von Thatsme:

[...] haben nie einen richtigen Bärenmarkt erlebt. Denke, wenn es doch dazu kommen könnte, würde es ziemlich das Vertrauen in die Börse zerstören.

Ist "Vertrauen", das auf der Realisierung von Chancen basiert und Risiken (aka "die schlechten Z-/S-eiten") ausblendet wirklich "Vertrauen"? Ich habe da so meine Zweifel...

 

Am 24.7.2021 um 17:01 von Ginnie:

[...] irgendwelche Instrumente hat davon abzuweichen oder die Möglichkeit hat (wodurch auch immer) diesen ein Stück weit zu umgehen?

Was gelegentlich versucht wird ist, (vermeintlich?) grenzwertige Entscheidungen der EZB gegen nationales und internationales Recht durch Gerichtsverfahren zu vergleichen. Taugt aber sicher nicht zur "Umgehung", da ggf. daraus resultierende Folgen wiederum die Gemeinschaft betreffen (würden).

 

Eine andere, interessante Frage dahingehend wäre mMn. z.B., ob es die Möglichkeit gäbe, eine (nationale) Parallelwährung (woher auch immer - muss ja nicht unebdingt "nur" staatlich sein) einzuführen, mit der sowas ggf. möglich wäre.

[reko]

2021/08/27 Jerome Powell: Die Jackson Hole-Rede – dovish

"Powell will Tapering noch dieses Jahr starten .. die Aktienmärkte steigen, der S&P 500 über 4500 Punkten, der Dollar schwächer, Gold höher, die Renditen niedriger"

Der Markt geht vermutlich von einen Anstieg der Inflation aus. Powell sagt es ist nur vorübergehend, man wird also erst mal nichts dagegen unternehmen  und die Zinsen niedrig lassen.

[Cornwallis]

Hallo,

 

ein Verweis auf einen Artikel mit gewissen Bärenmarktprognosen und der schlussendlichen Empfehlung, inverse ETF zu kaufen.

 

Die interessanteste Aussage:

 

"'das jährliche Geldmengenwachstum signifikant von 39 Prozent im Februar auf nur noch 8 Prozent im August verlangsamt [..]', sagte Wolfenbarger."

 

Weiß jemand, auf welche Geldmenge er diese Aussage bezieht?

 

Gruß

[Malvolio]

Bundesbank-Chef Weidmann tritt zurück

Stand: 20.10.2021 14:51 Uhr

 

Nach mehr als zehn Jahren an der Spitze der Bundesbank tritt Präsident Weidmann zum Jahresende zurück. Seine Entscheidung hat laut der Zentralbank persönliche Gründe.

 

https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/bundesbank-weidmann-101.html

 

[Cornwallis]

"What ever it takes."

Und kein Ende in Sicht..

 

Zitat

Bisher gewährt die EZB nur Banken Zugang zu ihrer Bilanz. [..] Die Berichtspflichten von Nicht-Banken wie Fonds sind dagegen überschaubar. Diese Akteure werden bei Ereignissen wie dem Corona-Schock im März 2020 Opfer starker Mittelabflüsse, die sie nur durch Verkäufe von Vermögenswerten um jeden Preis ermöglichen können. [..] De Guindos kündigte an, dass die EZB in nächster Zeit einen Bericht über offene Publikumsfonds veröffentlichen werde.

Quelle: https://www.finanzen.net/nachricht/aktien/de-guindos-schliesst-ezb-liquiditaet-fuer-nicht-banken-nicht-voellig-aus-10756366

 

Ich heiße das nicht gut.

[Bärenbulle]

Zitat

Fed Watch: One down, ten to go

...

The Fed hiked rates for the first time since 2018 and signalled more to come. We think the challenging inflation outlook will force the Fed to hike at every meeting this year, and continue hiking well into 2023, lifting the short rate above neutral.

The Fed started its rate hikes today with a 25bp move. We now see similar 25bp rate hikes in each of the six remaining Fed meetings this year and four more in 2023.

A decision on the balance sheet contraction measures likely already at the next meeting in May.

The market currently prices in even faster rate hikes than we or the Fed see this year, but fewer hikes longer out. We think the hiking cycle will eventually result in a higher short-term rate - around 3% next year - compared to current market pricing.

The Fed delivered the first 25bp rate increase since the start of the global pandemic, in line with expectations. The statement was clear that the rate hikes would continue by saying that the Fed anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate. One member, James Bullard, voted for a 50bp hike today.

The dot plot, i.e. the median FOMC participant, signalled a total of seven hikes this year, assuming the Fed moved in 25bp steps, and just short of a further four next year, bringing the fed funds target rate to 2.75% by the end of next year. However, seven of the 16 FOMC participants called for a faster pace of rate increases this year compared to the median.

The Russian invasion was seen as a major source of uncertainty, but the larger implications were seen to be on inflation. Compared to the December projections, the unemployment rate forecast was unchanged for this year and next (and only slightly higher for 2024), but the median core PCE projection rose throughout the forecast horizon (to stand at an above-target 2.3% in 2024 vs. 2.1% in December).

In the press conference, Powell clearly left the door open for bigger rate moves (50bp) at individual meetings, if the incoming data supported such steps.

...

The uncertainty over the terminal Fed rate obviously remains large, but the direction is clear. Even the most dovish FOMC policymaker sees the fed funds target rate at 2.125% at the end of next year, while the most hawkish two participants see it at 3.625%. For this year, even the most dovish policymaker sees at least four more rate hikes this year, while one participant actually suggests rates will rise by a further 275bp this year, equal to five 50bp hikes and one 25bp move in the remaining six meetings this year.

Markets still see the Fed stopping at around the peaks of the previous tightening cycle

Bond yields surged lately and the curve flattened

 

[Bärenbulle]

Zitat

YARDENI RESEARCH. There's no recession signal in the spread between the 12-month and nearby federal funds rate (FFR) futures. Indeed, the former is signaling the Fed will increase the federal funds rate to about 2.50% by March 2023, up from 0.50% currently. That implies eight 25bps hikes over this period. That's consistent with my view, and more importantly with Fed Chair Jerome Powell's view. Consider the following:

(1) On March 21, Powell delivered an important speech titled "Restoring Price Stability." He reiterated that he and his colleagues had pivoted from achieving full employment (which has been achieved) to bringing down inflation. He said: "The labor market is very strong, and inflation is much too high." He believes that the Fed can raise interest rates to slow demand relative to supply without causing a recession.  The goal is "a soft landing, with inflation coming down and unemployment holding steady."

(2) Powell acknowledged that the odds aren't in the Fed's favor. However, he found "some grounds for optimism" in the three episodes when the Fed raised rates without causing a recession since 1960 (in 1965, 1984, and 1994). Then again, there were nine recessions that followed tightening cycles since then. So I wish the Fed lots of luck!

(3) What about the narrowing yield spread between the 10-year and 2-year Treasuries? During the Q&A session, Powell countered that the yield spread between the 18-month forward 3-month Treasury and the current 3-month Treasury has actually steepened signaling economic growth.

(4) Powell's response reflects a recent FEDS Notes titled "(Don't Fear) The Yield Curve, Reprise." The authors discuss their "near-term forward spread," which "closely mirrors—and can be interpreted as—a measure of market participants' expectations for the trajectory of Federal Reserve interest rate policy over the coming year and a half." 

(5) The authors state that there is no reason to fear the 10-2 spread, or any other spread. They also claim "that the perceived omniscience" of the spread that "pervades market commentary is probably spurious." Furthermore, the "spread and its inversions would have provided no incremental information about future economic conditions if one were monitoring their near-term forward spread, which is more "transparent."

(6) Even more transparent and available in real time is the FFR futures spread.

 

[Bärenbulle]

[Toni]

 

 

[Bärenbulle]

Ich sehe das ähnlich. Die ersten drei Zinsschritte waren historisch gesehen noch nicht problematisch. Normal müste die Musik daher noch ca. für 1 Jahr weiterspielen. Erst nach eine signifikanten Anzahl an Zinsschritten wird der Markt vorsichtiger/labiler. Die Zinsschritte können allerdings diesmal sehr rasch aufeinander folgen und die Rücknahme der Anleihenkäufe sind ja eigentlich auch schon versteckte Zinsschritte. Daher ist ggf. auch jetzt schon Vorsicht angebracht.

[PapaPecunia]

Ich verfolge Fisher seit Jahren und er hat stets bemerkenswert gute Prognosen (ohne fehlerfrei zu sein). 

Er ist grundsätzlich sehr bullish (teilweise auch aus Eigeninteresse, er kann schlecht sagen lagern sie alles in Cash und Gold - letztlich ist er irgendwo auch ein Verkäufer). Insofern muss man die Ohren schon ein wenig spitzen, wenn er - wie momentan - ein bisschen weniger optimistisch wirkt und Vorsicht durchscheinen lässt. 

Insofern wäre es interessant was momentan in den Portfolios der Investmentgrößen und Hedgefonds vorgeht  - ich unterstelle, dass man sich schon seit Ende 2021 ganz langsam vorsichtiger positioniert (Link Insiderverkäufe zu -käufe) und das kontinuierlich weiter ausbaut.

 

In der breiten Bevölkerung ist das Vertrauen in die FED bzw. EZB aktuell noch ziemlich groß. Angesichts der momentan herrschenden Inflation bemerkenswert. Allerdings hat man mit Putin jetzt auch einen Sündenbock,

Die Verluste des Euros im Vergleich zu CHF und Dollar werden kaum thematisiert.

 

[Bärenbulle]

Besorgniserregend ist die starke Abweichung der angestrebten Zinserhöhungen auf ca. 3% von dem Zielwert den die Taylor-Regel eigentlich für sinnhaft hält:

 

 

Gemäss der Taylor-Regel ist eher ein Ansteigen der Zinsen auf 8-9% oder gar über 10% im FRED-Chart sinnhaft.

 

Exkurs / VWL Grundkurs:

 

Zu den vielen Beiträgen des Stanford-Ökonomen John Taylor zur monetären Ökonomie gehört seine Einführung der sogenannten Taylor-Regel (wie sie von anderen, nicht von ihm benannt wurde). Die Taylor-Regel ist eine einfache Gleichung – im Wesentlichen eine Faustregel – die die Zinsentscheidungen des Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) der Federal Reserve beschreiben soll.

Die Taylor-Regel ist ein wertvolles Beschreibungsmittel. John Taylor hat jedoch argumentiert, dass seine Regel sowohl vorschreiben als auch beschreiben sollte – das heißt, er glaubt, dass sie (oder eine ähnliche Regel) ein Maßstab für die Geldpolitik sein sollte. Ausgehend von dieser Prämisse hat er die Politik der Fed in den letzten etwa zehn Jahren ziemlich kritisiert. Kurz gesagt glaubt er, dass die Fed die Vorschriften der Taylor-Regel nicht genau genug befolgt hat und dass dieses angebliche Versagen zu sehr schlechten politischen Ergebnissen geführt hat.

 

Grundlagen der Taylor-Regel

In der Vergangenheit hat das FOMC die Geldpolitik festgelegt, indem es sein Ziel für den Federal Funds Rate angehoben oder gesenkt hat, den Zinssatz, zu dem sich Banken gegenseitig Übernachtkredite gewähren. Die Taylor-Regel, die er in 1993 eingeführt hat, ist eine numerische Formel, die das Ziel des FOMC für den Federal Funds Rate mit der aktuellen Wirtschaftslage in Beziehung setzt. Die Formel lautet:

 

r = p + 0,5y + 0,5(p – 2) + 2

 

r = Federal Funds Rate

p = die Inflationsrate

y = die prozentuale Abweichung des realen BIP von einem Ziel

 

Normalerweise ist das „Ziel“ der Fed für das reale BIP das Produktionspotenzial, also die Menge, die die Wirtschaft nachhaltig produzieren kann, wenn Kapital und Arbeit voll eingesetzt sind. Unter dieser Annahme lässt sich die Variable y in der Taylor-Regel als Überschuss des tatsächlichen BIP über das Produktionspotenzial interpretieren, der auch als Produktionslücke bezeichnet wird.

 

Um die Gleichung in Worte zu fassen: Die (ursprüngliche) Taylor-Regel sagt voraus, dass das FOMC die Federal Funds Rate um einen halben Prozentpunkt anheben wird:

(1) für jeden Prozentpunkt, um den die Inflation relativ zum Ziel der Fed steigt (angenommene 2 Prozent); oder

(2) für jeden Prozentpunkt, um den der Output im Verhältnis zu seinem Potenzial steigt.

 

Die Taylor-Regel sagt auch voraus, dass das FOMC, wenn die Inflation den Zielwert und die Produktion das Potenzial erreicht hat (die Produktionslücke ist null), den realen Federal Funds Rate auf 2 Prozent festsetzen wird – etwa auf seinen historischen Durchschnitt. In seiner Arbeit von 1993 zeigte John Taylor, dass die Regel das FOMC-Verhalten in den vorangegangenen halben Dutzend Jahren ziemlich gut beschrieb.

 

Fazit: Oben im Charts sieht man das die Tylor-Regel die Zusammenhänge wirklich sehr gut aufzeigt. Die FED hat die Vorgaben der Taylorregel in der Vergangenheit relativ eng verfolgt bzw. der Zusammenhang ist meist gegeben. Das extreme Auseinanderklaffen in 2022 ist daher zutiefst besorgniserregend. Das strikte Befolgen der Taylorregel mag durchaus kritikfähig sein, aber die derzeitge Abweichung ist schon eklatant.

 

 

[Bärenbulle]

Zitat

After steering the U.S. central bank through an unprecedented series of challenges from the pandemic, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee face another critical test: controlling the highest inflation in decades without tipping the economy into a recession. 

Last week, the Fed announced the biggest interest hike in 22 years and plans for reducing the Fed’s nearly $9 trillion balance sheet.

“What we can control is demand, we can’t really affect supply with our policies,” Powell told Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal in an interview Thursday. “And supply is a big part of the story here. But more than that, there are huge events, geopolitical events going on around the world, that are going to play a very important role in the economy in the next year or so. So the question whether we can execute a soft landing or not, it may actually depend on factors that we don’t control.”

The following is a full transcript of the interview.

Kai Ryssdal: Mr. Chairman, welcome to the program. Good to have you back on.

Jerome Powell: Thanks, Kai, it’s great to be here.

Ryssdal: Let me start with your most recent press conference. At the beginning, you went out of your way, I think it’s fair to say, to speak directly to the American people — you actually use those words. Do you think you’re getting through to the American people?

Powell: Well, I hope we are. So you know, most of the people who listen to the press conference and follow our communications very carefully are market participants or economists, Fed watchers of various kinds. And I thought it was important to try to speak directly to the public that we serve and tell them that we understand that inflation is very painful, that the Fed is accountable to get inflation down to 2%, and that we have the tools and we have the, you know, the strong desire to get inflation under control. And we’ll do that.

Ryssdal: I don’t doubt that they take you at your word that you want to get this under control, and that price stability, in Fed speak, is critical to this entire economy. I wonder what you say, though, to the person who — as you tighten up on interest rates and slow the economy down, right, which is the plan — what do you say to the person who’s going to lose his or her job, or maybe not see the pay raise that they ordinarily would get?

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Powell: So you can see that inflation is just way too high here in the United States. And by the way, the same all over the world, really, the global economies all around the world have been hit by a series of inflationary shocks and, pretty much, I just came back from a set of meetings with central bankers from around the world, and we’re all facing the same kind of issues and the public are facing the same kinds of issues. 

Ryssdal: Worse here, though, worse here, to be clear, right? 

Powell: Some places worse, some places better. We’re facing different challenges, but then again our economy’s more fully recovered, they may be just behind us in time. But what would I say to that person? So I would say that we fully understand and appreciate how painful inflation is, and that we have the tools and the resolve to get it down to 2%, and that we’re going to do that. I will also say that the process of getting inflation down to 2% will also include some pain, but ultimately the most painful thing would be if we were to fail to deal with it and inflation were to get entrenched in the economy at high levels, and we know what that’s like. And that’s just people losing the value of their paycheck to high inflation and, ultimately, we’d have to go through a much deeper downturn. And so we really need to avoid that.

Ryssdal: What keeps you up more at night: the prospect of inflation sticking around? Or the idea that you’re going to cause a recession?

Powell: Well, look, I think it’s a very challenging environment to make monetary policy. And we certainly, our goal, of course, is to get inflation back down to 2% without having the economy go into recession, or, to put it this way, with the labor market remaining fairly strong. That’s what we’re trying to achieve. I think the one thing we really cannot do is to fail to restore price stability, though. Nothing in the economy works, the economy doesn’t work for anybody without price stability. We went through periods in our history where inflation was quite high. This was back in the ‘70s, and I was old enough to remember. I’m old enough to remember that very well. And we really, we can’t fail to restore price stability.

Ryssdal: How much do you think it matters, just on that idea of the 1970s, how much do you think it matters that there are generations of people in this economy who know nothing but 2% inflation or less for, like, 50 years now? And that’s why this is scary as hell, right?

Powell: Well, look, I would, I guess I would say it this way. You know, it’s a good thing that we haven’t had high inflation, really, in 40 years. It’s a great thing. You know, we … the ‘70s and the ‘80s, it’s a very unpleasant phenomenon. And people are now, for the first time — many people, as you point out, are young enough that they haven’t experienced that, and now they’re seeing what it is. And it’s unfortunate, I wish they weren’t, I wish that all of this hadn’t happened and we still had 2% inflation. And we need to get back to 2% inflation, that’s the main thing. The main lesson is we must do whatever, you know, what we need to do to get inflation back to 2%. And we have the tools to do that. And we will.

Ryssdal: You’ve said you’re going to do whatever you need to do. At that last meeting, you specifically took a 75-basis point increase in the federal funds rate — that is to say, three quarters of a percentage point — you took it off the table. Why?

Powell: Well, actually, what I what I said was that we were, that the committee had decided —

Ryssdal: “Not actively considering,” right? That’s —

Powell: I said we weren’t actively considering that. But I said what we were actively considering, and this is just a factual recitation of what happened at the meeting, was a 50-basis point increase, that’s a half a percentage point increase, the first one in more than 20 years. And that we thought that if the economy performs about as expected, that it would be appropriate for there to be additional 50-basis point increases at the next two meetings, so. But I would just say, we have a series of expectations about the economy. If things come in better than we expect, then we’re prepared to do less. If they come in worse than when we expect, then we’re prepared to do more.

Ryssdal: Let me be clear, 75-basis points is “prepared to do more?”

Powell: What you’ve seen is, you’ve seen this committee adapt to the incoming data and the evolving outlook. And that’s what we’ll continue to do.

Ryssdal: You also talked about a pathway. You said it’s going to be challenging, to get to this mythical soft landing. What does that pathway look like?

Powell: So a soft landing is, is really just getting back to 2% inflation while keeping the labor market strong. And it’s quite challenging to accomplish that right now, for a couple of reasons. One is just that unemployment is very, very low, the labor market’s extremely tight, and inflation is very high. So it will be challenging, it won’t be easy. No one here thinks that it will be easy. Nonetheless, we think there are pathways, as you mentioned, for us to get there. And really what that means is just as we raise rates, we — so the problem, what causes inflation, is that demand and supply are out of whack. There’s too much demand. For example, in the labor market, there’s more demand for workers than there are people to take the jobs, right now, by a substantial margin. And, because of that, wages are moving up at levels that are unsustainably high and not consistent with low inflation. And so what we need to do is we need to get demand down, give supply a chance to recover and get those to align. So how might we do that? Right now, in the labor market, there are two job openings for every unemployed person. It’s historically high-level. So in principle, and I’m not saying this will be easy to do, in principle, you could moderate demand, reduce demand to the point where job openings move down substantially, and the labor market gets much closer to being in balance. And that would affect … wages would still be moving up at healthy levels. They wouldn’t have to go down, but ultimately they would be at levels that would be consistent with 2% inflation.

Ryssdal: So here comes the poke-you-in-the-eye question. Did you blow it, in being late and failing to recognize that inflation was going to stick around?

Powell: So the way I’d put it was this: We were — if you go back to the economy of February of 2020, right before the pandemic, 3.5% unemployment, inflation right on target, a little below 2%, and the economy is growing at a couple of percent. It’s a really nice place. Since then, we’ve been hit with, you know, the first pandemic in 100 years, global pandemic. And then a very, very strong response, both from fiscal authorities and from us, followed by the outbreak of inflation, followed by the war in Ukraine, followed by, now, the big shutdowns all over China. So we’ve really been hit by a series of global, really, inflation, inflationary shocks. And so all around the world, you’re seeing economies that are struggling with high inflation. Many, many countries around the world are having the highest inflation they’ve had in 40 years, and struggling with the exact same things we are. So there’s a lot of commonality, there are some differences. But you know, Kai, I have said, and I will say again that, you know, if you had perfect hindsight you’d go back and it probably would have been better for us to have raised rates a little sooner. I’m not sure how much difference it would have made, but we have to make decisions in real time, based on what we know then, and we did the best we could. Now, we see the picture clearly and we’re determined to use our tools to get us back to price stability.

Ryssdal: You’ve said, not just in your last meeting, but many a time, that the Fed’s tools are blunt instruments trying to finesse a really difficult problem. Which gets me to this: One of the things we talked about the last time I was here — and it was in the context of President Trump and him piling on you, actually — and you said —  you know, you control the controllable, and you just, you do what you can do. I wonder, now, if you are left with really only being able to, through your blunt monetary policy tools, control the controllable? You can’t control supply in this economy. You can’t control fiscal policy, right? I wonder how frustrated you are.

Powell: I wouldn’t put it as frustrated. You know, I’m really honored to be able to play this role. And I just would, I guess I would say it this way: What we can control is demand, we can’t really affect supply with our policies. And supply is a big part of the story, here. But more than that, there are huge events, geopolitical events going on around the world, that are going to play a very important role in the economy in the next year or so. So the question whether we can execute a soft landing or not, it may actually depend on factors that we don’t control. But we should control the controllable. And what we control is there’s a job to do on demand, demand is out of whack with supply, as I mentioned, in the labor market, there’s more demand than there are people to satisfy that demand. And we can address that directly, and we will by trying to, you know, moderate demand in a way that lets the labor market get back in balance and help inflation get back to 2%.

Ryssdal: You said, maybe a meeting or two ago — and I apologize for them all running together, but I’m sure you can appreciate that — you said the labor market is “tight to an unhealthy level” in this economy. When you frame that in terms of people now being able to get jobs, if they want jobs, how is that unhealthy?

Powell: That part of it is healthy. No, certainly from the standpoint of a worker, you see people able to change jobs, the level of people quitting to go find jobs that they prefer that pay better, maybe they’re doing the same thing but for a competitor. The quit level’s at an all-time high and wage increases are very high. You know, of course, all of us think that’s great. When I said unhealthy, what I really meant was that there’s an imbalance between demand and supply, and companies can’t find workers. They just, there aren’t the workers. There’s more demand than there are people to supply their labor. So that’s not a healthy situation for an economy because it results in high inflation. That’s a significant part of the inflationary story. So what we want is wages that are consistent with 2% inflation. You know, workers now are seeing their paycheck eaten up by inflation, particularly people at the lower end of the income spectrum. And, you know, that’s not a good situation, that’s not a healthy situation. Healthy situation is when supply and demand are more close to being aligned, and inflation is back down to our goal.

Ryssdal: Almost whatever it takes?

Powell: You know, I just would say it this way: The committee and I are firmly committed to getting inflation back down to 2%. And the reason is that the economy doesn’t work for anyone unless you do that, if you think about it. High inflation is not consistent with a great labor market, it’s not consistent with a sustainable level of employment. It doesn’t work for anybody. So we really, price stability is the bedrock, in some sense, on which the economy has to rest, and we’ve had it for a long time. We suddenly are hit by all these shocks and, like others around the world, we’re struggling to restore it, but restore it we will.

Ryssdal: You talked a little bit about Paul Volcker at the last meeting, and you’ve talked about him before. You said you knew him a little bit, but the thing that really struck you about him was that he always did what he saw to be the right thing, in arguably more difficult economic times than you have right now. My question is: How sure are you that what you are doing now is the right thing? 

Powell: Yeah. So that’s a good point. I do admire Paul Volcker. I think everyone admires Paul Volcker now. So I’m not to be singled out in any way for admiring him, you know. He was a truly great public servant and person. And the point was that he did what he thought the right thing was, and he was prepared to be unpopular for that, because he was looking at the medium and longer term, well, for the country. And I don’t have any, you know, I think that’s a good thing to keep in mind as you do public service jobs, is don’t think about what’s popular, do what you think is right and let everything else take care of itself. I take it as a general principle. It doesn’t provide any, it doesn’t shed any light on the current situation. We have to make an assessment of what the right thing to do is in the current situation. We know that what Paul Volcker did was right in his situation, and it’s something like that might turn out to be right here. But I don’t think we know that. I think we have a lot to learn about what the path ahead looks like.

Ryssdal: I need you to roll with me on this last one. We’ve got a little game we play on the show. It’s called “What is Jay Powell thinking in five words or less?” And I ask our Friday afternoon panelists when we have a big monetary policy topic come up, I say, “OK, what is Jay Powell thinking in five words or less?” And I would not be able to forgive myself if, sitting across from Jay Powell, I don’t ask Jay Powell what Jay Powell is thinking in five words or less. I should tell you I did this with Obama and he blew it. He went on for like a minute. So, no pressure.

Powell: Five words or less. I’m gonna go with what I really am thinking is, “get inflation back under control.”

Ryssdal: Oh, man. Boom.

Das Interview ist sehr interessant, daher hier mal in Originallänge.  Ich finde es lässt recht tief blicken.  Zwischen den Zeilen:  Powell ist klar dass Sie spät dran sind, die FED in einer sehr unbehaglichen Situation ist, die Situation mit 1973/1974 vergleichbar ist und dass er das 2% Ziel überpriorisiert verglichen mit dem Ziel Vollbeschäftigung. FED Put is over.

[Bärenbulle]

Geil. Von welchem Stern ist der denn?

Zitat

Commerzbank-Chefvolkswirt:

 

Wie weit die Zinsen steigen

Gestbeitrag FAZ - Von Jörg Krämer

Die Mitglieder des Rats der Europäischen Zentralbank (EZB) diskutieren öffentlich darüber, wann im dritten Quartal der Leitzins zum ersten Mal erhöht werden soll. Aber wichtiger als der Zeitpunkt des Zinsschritts ist die Frage, auf welches Niveau die EZB den Leitzins am Ende anheben wird. Laut den Terminmärkten endet der Zinserhöhungsprozess in zwei Jahren bei nur 1,2 Prozent. Aber am Ende dürfte die EZB ihren Leitzins deutlich stärker anheben müssen – mit entsprechenden Folgen für Anleiherenditen und Bauzinsen.

Bei ihren Schätzungen für den mittelfristig angemessenen Leitzins orientieren sich viele Marktteilnehmer am sogenannten gleichgewichtigen Realzins. Das ist ein inflationsbereinigter Zins, der eine Volkswirtschaft gerade ins Gleichgewicht bringt, also für normal ausgelastete Produktionskapazitäten und stabile Preise sorgt. Nach Aussagen von EZB-Ratsmitgliedern liegt der gleichgewichtige Realzins zwischen minus 1 und minus 0,5 Prozent. Addiert man das EZB-Inflationsziel von zwei Prozent hinzu, erhält man einen langfristig angemessenen Leitzins von 1 bis 1,5 Prozent.

Aber Vorsicht: Der gleichgewichtige Realzins ist ein theoretisches Konstrukt und nicht beobachtbar, er muss geschätzt werden. Dabei orientieren sich die Volkswirte der Zentralbanken meist an der Inflationsrate. Lag sie wie in den Jahren vor der Corona-Pandemie unter dem Ziel von zwei Prozent, erklären das die EZB-Modelle durch eine zu straffe Geldpolitik, also dadurch, dass der EZB-Leitzins über dem langfristig angemessenen Leitzins liegt. Dieser muss in den zurückliegenden Jahren offensichtlich schneller gefallen sein als der Leitzins. Nach dieser Modelllogik führen überraschend niedrige Inflationsraten unter zwei Prozent zu fallenden Schätzungen für den gleichgewichtigen Realzins. Umgekehrt heißt das: Wegen der zuletzt überraschend hohen Inflation dürften die EZB-Modelle in Zukunft wieder einen deutlich steigenden gleichgewichtigen Realzins anzeigen. Genau das erwartet übrigens kein Geringerer als EZB-Vizepräsident Luis des Guindos.

Ich gehe davon aus, dass die Schätzungen für den gleichgewichtigen Realzins am Ende auf 0,5 bis 1 Prozent steigen werden, sich also in der Nähe des langfristigen Wirtschaftswachstums einpendeln. Zuzüglich des Inflationsziels von zwei Prozent käme man auf einen langfristig angemessenen Leitzins von 2,5 bis 3 Prozent. Vermutlich müsste die EZB zur Bekämpfung der Inflation phasenweise sogar darüber hinausgehen, weil die langfristigen Inflationserwartungen schon über dem Ziel der EZB liegen und die Arbeitslosenquote bereits so niedrig ist wie noch nie seit Gründung der Währungsunion.

Die Inflation mag im kommenden Jahr vorübergehend fallen, wenn der Ukrainekrieg nicht eskaliert und die Energiepreise wieder etwas zurückgehen. Dann könnten die Anleiherenditen und die Bauzinsen auch mal wieder sinken. Aber auf die längere Sicht dürften sie deutlich höher liegen, als das der Markt derzeit erwartet.

Short Commerzbank, würde ich sagen.

[Maikel]

Am 17.5.2022 um 22:03 von Bärenbulle:

Die Taylor-Regel, die er in 1993 eingeführt hat, ist eine numerische Formel, die das Ziel des FOMC für den Federal Funds Rate mit der aktuellen Wirtschaftslage in Beziehung setzt. Die Formel lautet:

 

r = p + 0,5y + 0,5(p – 2) + 2

 

r = Federal Funds Rate

p = die Inflationsrate

y = die prozentuale Abweichung des realen BIP von einem Ziel

Ich habe mich jetzt auch mal mit der Taylor-Regel beschäftigt, und finde gleich bei Wikipedia eine zusätzlich zu berücksichtigende Komponente, nämlich:

„Produktionslücke“ bzw. „Output Gap“ ygap ist die logarithmische Differenz zwischen dem tatsächlichen realen BIP und dem Produktionspotenzial (definiert als Produktionsvolumen entsprechend der langfristigen Wachstumsrate).

 

Ich kenne die aktuellen Daten zum Produktionspotential nicht, finde diesen Punkt aber höchstinteressant, da das Produktionspotential auch ein wesentlicher Aspekt in der Modern Money Theory ist.

[Fondsanleger1966]

Am 18.5.2022 um 18:54 von Bärenbulle:

Geil. Von welchem Stern ist der denn?

Short Commerzbank, würde ich sagen.

Darf ich fragen, wie Deine Bemerkungen zum Krämer-Kommentar zu verstehen sind? Ich fand ihn ziemlich inspirierend und die (von Dir?) gefettete Schlussfolgerung nicht abwegig.

 

Natürlich kann man diskutieren, ob die EZB sich traut, so weit hochzugehen (Flossbachs Argument mit dem Italien-Zins). Aber dann könnte die Inflation unangenehm hoch bleiben und halt später eine schärfere Reaktion erfordern (ähnlich wie in den 1970er Jahren).

 

P.S. Danke auch für die Postings zur Taylor-Regel!