The Fed Will Pivot And The Market Will Bottom
Last Thursday The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip wrote an excellent column in which he argued that the Fed’s “critical junctures” i.e. hard decisions are still ahead of it. For the most part it’s been relatively easy for Powell to do the right thing and be hawkish on inflation to this point. However as the market starts to crash his predicament is becoming more difficult.
It won’t be long before Powell starts hearing calls and feeling the pressure to take his foot off the accelerator. All I hear among commentators at the moment is how the Fed is going to push us into recession. What I’m telling you is that the Fed will pivot soon to balance its concern with inflation with the now crashing stock market and when it does stocks will find a bottom for the year. Powell may be Volcker 2.0 but he’s a long way from proving that.