Investors and observers have hailed the Fed’s decision to trim its balance sheet from October onwards as a turning point in the drive to normalise monetary policy. But a decline of $10 billion per month in the hefty portfolio the Fed has accumulated in recent years will hardly have any visible effect on the bond market.
J.L. M. Campuzano (Spanish Banking Association) | The global central banks are putting their plans for monetary normalisation on the table. But they also recognise that inflation risks are contained in the short-term. That means they have a margin of time to proceed with monetary normalisation in a cautious and patient way.
Benjamin Cole | While taxes and trade get the headlines, a major issue in the US is ubiquitous restrictive property zoning, and the false signals zoning sends to the Fed. Indeed, the “housing bubble” that led to Fed over-tightening in 2007 barely surfaced in Houston, but was highly prominent in San Francisco. Obviously, the “housing bubble” was not Fed-induced.
Nobody really knows why volatility has disappeared. In theory, there are more than enough reasons for the market to be nervous, and for investors to take advantage of this to obtain higher returns.
Markets are currently looking to the US Federal Reserve’s (Fed) September policy meeting, scheduled for tomorrow and Wednesday. Given the Fed’s statement at its June 2017 policy meeting, the balance sheet reduction should begin gradually at USD 10 billion per month.
J.L.M. Campuzano (Spanish Banking Association) | The increase in the size of the central banks’ balance sheet has without doubt been one of the untraditional measures of the financial crisis. But the president of the ECB has anticipated that probably at its next meeting in October a scheme will be worked out to progressively reduce the asset buying programme.
Benjamin Cole | With the announced mid-October resignation of U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, Donald Trump has a chance to do what Presidents Obama and Bush never did: appoint growth-oriented members to control nation’s central bank.
Stan Fisher the Fed’s vice president has decided to resign at mid-October for personal reasons. This will dramatically change the internal equilibrium of the Fed’s board.
On the whole, the Jackson Hole symposium provided very little in the way of fresh indications on either the Fed or the ECB’s monetary policy, market experts say.
Currently, even yields on European high-yield bonds are below equity dividend yields, making investment in stocks a better way of generating income. For US bonds, the focus is on the Fed’s planned balance sheet normalisation.