Business

When in doubt about the Fed's policies, or their implementation, always go right to the source of Fed ideas, Goldman Sachs, which moments ago published its post-mortem on today's FOMC statement, noting that the "post-meeting statement included modest upgrades to its description of growth but acknowledged the moderation in job growth and the decline in inflation, and it continued to describe risks to the outlook as “roughly balanced.”

In the most well-telegraphed, 'never in doubt, no matter how bad the economic data is' FOMC Statement ever, The Fed hiked rates by 25bps and maintained its rate-hike trajectory forecast, shrugging off the collapse in economic data (including weak inflation). The market was anticipating a so-called 'dovish hike' and The Fed delivered by saying it is "monitoring inflation developments closely" and also offered more detailed plans of the balance sheet unwind (beginning this year).

FANG Stocks are dragging the Nasdaq lower as "growth" is dumped post-Fed...

The selling accelerated as Yellen began to speak...

And as Nasdaq tumbles, so VIX tops 11...

Earlier, we laid out how, in theory, the Fed's balance sheet unwind plan will work according to the FOMC: the Fed will trim reinvestments in TSYs at a rate of $6Bn/month initially, and MBS at $4Bn/month, or a total of $10bn/month, and will increase the reinvestment caps in steps of $10bn ($6TSY+$4MBS) at 3 month intervals over 12 months until it reaches a total 50bn per month.

Coming in earlier than many expected, the Fed for the first time laid out how it plans to "normalize" its balance sheet which it expects to reduce by trimming reinvestments in TSYs at a rate of $6Bn/month initially, and MBS at $4Bn/month, or a total of $10bn/month, and will increase the reinvestment caps in steps of 10bn at 3 month intervals over 12 months until it reaches a total 50bn per month.

Indicatively this is well below Goldman's expectation of $10bn and $5bn initial caps for TSYs and MBS, as we showed over the weekend.