Authored by Daniel Nevins via FFWiley.com,
In September, we proposed a theory of the Fed and suggested that the FOMC will soon worry mostly about financial imbalances without much concern for recession risks. We reached that conclusion by simply weighing the reputational pitfalls faced by the economists on the committee, but now we’ll add more meat to our argument, using financial flows data released last week.
Year-end rate hike once again proves to be launchpad for gold price
One day after the Fed hiked rates by 25 bps as part of Janet Yellen's final news conference, it is central bank bonanza day, with rate decisions coming from the rest of the world's most important central banks, including the ECB, BOE, SNB, Norges Bank, HKMA, Turkey and others.
With a 98.3% probability heading in, there was really no doubt the most-telegraphed rate-hike ever would occur, but all eyes are on the dots (rate trajectory shows 3 hikes in 2018), inflation outlook (unchanged), and growth outlook (faster growth in 2018), and lowered unemployment outlook to below 4%. The Fed also plans to increase its balance sheet run off to $20 billion in January.
After last week's payrolls report, the year is starting to wind down for economic events and capital markets, but not before one last hurrah for central banks: indeed, it is a very busy week dominated by central bank meetings for the FOMC, ECB, BOE, SNB and Norges Bank. We will also observe the controversial Alabama Senate elections and the EU Council summit on the state of Brexit negotiations. Data-wise, the most important economic update will be Wednesday's US CPI print, as well as industrial production releases in a number of countries including the US and China.