I’m Waiting for the Man

Articles From: Interactive Brokers
Website: Interactive Brokers

By:

Chief Strategist

Interactive Brokers

I’ve previously suggested that if Chairman Powell had walk-up music, it should be “I’m Waiting for the Man” by the Velvet Underground.  Lou Reed’s lyrics are from the point of a heroin addict waiting for his peripatetic dealer to sell him his next fix.  Every six weeks, markets have been going through a similar ritual with the Federal Reserve as they seek another dose of precious liquidity.  Unlike the song’s unnamed dealer, Chairman Powell is quite punctual, and lately he has been less forthcoming.

As the table below shows, the S&P 500 Index (SPX) traded lower in the three-day period that followed five of the past six FOMC meeting.  In each of those cases, traders were pricing in some sort of dovishness from the FOMC or Chairman Powell, only to have their hopes dashed.  In the first two of those cases, SPX closed higher in the immediate aftermath of the meeting only to sink in subsequent days.  We have noted before that traders react while investors consider.  Traders reacted as they saw accordingly at the time, but investors with cooler heads and longer time horizons took an extra day to digest the news with a less reflexively bullish tone.

1 and 3 day changes after previous FOMC Meetings

Source: Interactive Brokers

The lone exception to that recent pattern was in July 2022.  Stocks were bouncing resoundingly off their June lows on hopes that we had seen the bottom for the year (spoiler alert: we hadn’t).  In the immediate aftermath of the Chair’s press conference we noted what sounded like a moderate tone.  Markets seized on that as an opportunity to continue their advance.  Yet less than a month later, Mr. Powell changed his tone dramatically.  His strident speech at the Kansas City Fed’s Jackson Hole conference left no doubt about the Fed’s resolve to continue its policy of rate hikes and quantitative tightening.  Our comment at the time was “Goldilocks: ‘Stop Doubting My Resolve to Cool the Porridge.’”  If we include that harsh rebuke, that makes us 6 for 6 in overshooting the Fed.

It is for this reason that we wrote earlier this week:

My gut says that Powell reverts to “less Goldilocks, more Jackson Hole mode”, though I’m not sure the market agrees.

There has been ample evidence that financial conditions have been improving in recent weeks.  That is exactly what the Fed is trying to avoid.  The point of their rate hikes and quantitative tightening is to tighten liquidity to clamp down on inflation.

securities held on the Federal Reserve Balance Sheet

Source: Federal Reserve H.4.1 releases, Interactive Brokers

Ask yourself, honestly, do you really expect the FOMC and Powell to simply say, “Yeah, you guys are right. We’ve seen enough, so we’ll pause our rate hikes with the hope of reversing them within a few months?”  Of course not.  They may pause in after the next meeting or two, but without clear and lasting evidence that inflation is sustainably around 2%, they are not inclined to reverse those hikes simply because the market wants them to.  The only rational reason for them to reverse course would be if a recession forces their hand.  That is what the bond market seems to be fearing.  Stocks don’t seem to have a similar concern. 

As before, “Don’t Fight the Fed” and “Careful What You Wish For” should be resonating even as we’re waiting for the man today.

Disclosure: Interactive Brokers

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