Fed – No Change, But 3 Cuts To Come. Frontrunning For Dummies.

Baltic Dry Index. 2284 -108           Brent Crude  86.47

Spot Gold 2208                    US 2 Year Yield 4.59 -0.09

 What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.

Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776.

The Chairman Powell led, US central bank, completely captivated by Wall Street’s sharks, makes frontrunning the Fed the easy money gift that never stops giving.

The Fed, as predicted, left its key interest rate unchanged, while the latest dot plot release suggests that the Fed will likely cut interest rates three times by a quarter point in the second half of 2024.

To the Fed it’s Biden Joe Biden or Bust, apparently.

Now on to today’s Bank of England interest rate decision.

 

South Korea, Japan stocks gain over 2% after Fed maintains rate forecast; Nikkei hits all-time high

UPDATED THU, MAR 21 2024 1:46 AM EDT

Japan stocks hit a fresh all-time high on Thursday as Asia markets climbed after the Federal Reserve maintained its forecast for three rate cuts this year, while holding rates at 5.25%-5.5% in its latest meeting.

The outlook for three cuts came from the Fed’s “dot plot,” a closely watched matrix of anonymous projections from the 19 officials who comprise the Federal Open Market Committee. The chart provides no indication for the timing of the moves.

The updated dot plot indicated three cuts in 2025 as well – one fewer than the last time the grid was updated in December.

South Korea’s Kospi climbed more than 2.35% to lead gains in Asia, hitting its highest level since April 2022, while the small-cap Kosdaq was up 1.29%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged 2.01%, scaling a new all-time high as did the Topix, up 1.61%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 1.74%, while mainland China’s CSI 300 bucked the wider trend to drop 0.17%.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 advanced 1.16% to close at 7,784.9, after flash data from Judo Bank showed that the country’s business activity expanded at a faster pace in March compared with the prior month.

The country’s composite purchasing managers index stood at 52.4, up from 52.1 in February.

Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes rose, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P500 closing at record highs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 1.03% to finish at 39,512.13, while the S&P 500 gained 0.89% to close at 5,224.62. rising above the 5,200 level for the first time.

The Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.25%, powered by megacap tech stocks.

Asia markets live updates: Fed decision, Japan Tankan, Australia PMI (cnbc.com)

 

Fed meeting recap: Everything Powell said during Wednesday’s market-moving news conference

UPDATED WED, MAR 20 2024 3:22 PM EDT

The Federal Reserve held steady on interest rates at the conclusion of its March meeting, and it’s sticking with its forecast for three interest rate cuts. During a news conference Fed Chair Jerome Powell noted that a strong jobs market wouldn’t deter the central bank from cutting rates.

 

The Fed chair is looking for confirmation of last year’s low inflation readings

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will continue to seek confirmation inflation is moving closer to the central bank’s 2% target, even after a recent spate of hotter inflation readings.

“The other thing is, in the second half of the year, you had some pretty low readings, so it might be harder to make that 12 month window forward,” Powell said.

“Nonetheless, we’re looking for data that confirm the low readings that we had last year,” Powell continued. “And give us a higher degree of confidence that what we saw was really inflation moving sustainably down to 2%.”

— Sarah Min

Strong hiring wouldn’t push Fed to delay rate cuts, Powell says

Continued strength in the labor market wouldn’t be a reason to hold off lowering interest rates, said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

“Strong hiring in and of itself would not be a reason to hold off on rate cuts,” he said, adding that the job market by itself is not cause for concern around inflation. Earlier, Powell said “an unexpected weakening in the labor market could also warrant a policy response.”

— Alex Harring

Higher inflationary data hasn’t changed its overall trend downward, Powell says

Major inflationary data points — the consumer price index and personal consumption expenditure — rose for both January and February. Fed Chair Jerome Powell thinks this data is just further proof of inflation’s nonlinear path downwards.

“I think they haven’t really changed the overall story, which is that of inflation moving down gradually on a sometimes bumpy road toward 2%,” he said during a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. “We’re not going to overreact to these two months of data, nor are we going to ignore them.”

— Lisa Kailai Han

Powell needs a ‘good reason not to cut rates,’ says Principal Asset Management’s Seema Shah

In response to the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold rates steady, Principal Asset Management’s chief global strategist Seema Shah said, “Powell has perhaps shown his cards: he needs a good reason not to cut rates, rather than a reason to cut rates. Markets perhaps couldn’t have asked for more from the Fed and equities will celebrate.”

“The Fed really really wants its soft-landing ending. Stronger growth, lower unemployment, higher inflation–and yet still no change to the median dot,” Shah continued. She emphasized that cutting rates before inflation is close to the Fed’s 2% target, and while GDP growth is above trend, is a “risky path.”

— Pia Singh

Market strategist: ‘Investors are relieved to see three cuts stay in the dot plot’

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and the central blank are not faltering as inflation proves to be sticky, said David Russell, global head of market strategy at investing platform TradeStation. And he said the continued expectation for three interest rate cuts this year is also promising.

“We had some inflation bumps this year but Jerome Powell’s not blinking,” Russell said. “Investors are relieved to see three cuts stay in the dot plot, supporting markets and risk appetite.”

“The Fed might wake up with a hangover, but the punchbowl isn’t going away yet,” he said.  

— Alex Harring

Fed meeting today: Live updates on March Fed rate decision (cnbc.com)

 

Gold Jumps Above $2,200 an Ounce for First Time on Dovish Powell

Thu, March 21, 2024 at 4:07 AM GMT

(Bloomberg) -- Gold jumped above $2,200 an ounce for the first time after the Federal Reserve maintained its outlook for three rate cuts this year, suggesting it isn’t alarmed by a recent uptick in inflation.

Bullion rose as much as 1.6% to a record of $2,220.89 an ounce in early trading, before paring about half of those gains. It’s surged since mid-February, underpinned by long-standing supports including heightened geopolitical risks and buying by central banks, led by China. The rapid ascent has surprised many seasoned market observers, however, as there hasn’t been a clear catalyst.

The rally has been partially driven by expectations for looser monetary policy in the US, and that was reaffirmed by the Fed on Wednesday. Chair Jerome Powell continued to highlight officials would like to see more evidence that prices are coming down, but “it’s still likely in most people’s view that we will achieve that confidence and there will be rate cuts,” he said.

“What we saw last night was the green light really for gold traders to come back in,” said Chris Weston, head of research for Pepperstone Group Ltd. “The Fed have said that right now they’re tolerant of the inflation that we’ve seen, they’re tolerant that the labor market strength is not going to be the impediment.”

Speculation around the timing of the Fed’s long-anticipated pivot may have provided the trigger for recent gains, with data showing that traders boosted their net long positions on gold last week by the most since 2019. The metal stands to benefit even more when US interest rates actually do come down, as bullion-backed exchange traded funds look likely to increase their holdings, according to UBS Group AG.

More

Gold Jumps Above $2,200 an Ounce for First Time on Dovish Powell (yahoo.com)

In other news:

 

‘First Shoe’ Drops in Obscure Corner of Real Estate Finance

March 19, 2024 at 10:55 PM GMT

There’s a new red light flashing when it comes to commercial real estate. An obscure investment product used to finance risky projects is facing unprecedented stress as borrowers struggle to repay loans tied to commercial property ventures.

Known as commercial real estate collateralized loan obligations (CRE CLO), they bundle debt that would usually be seen as too speculative for conventional mortgage-backed securities. In just the last seven months, the share of troubled assets held by these niche products surged four-fold—rising by one measure to more than 7.4%.

For the hardest hit, delinquency rates are in the double digits. That’s left major players in the $80 billion market rushing to rework loans while short sellers ramp up attacks on publicly-traded issuers.

The pain of course is part of a broader, post-pandemic shakeout in the $20 trillion US commercial real estate market, which almost brought down New York Community Bancorp and has elicited warnings from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Yet industry observers say few products are more exposed than CRE CLOs. “The CRE CLO market is the first shoe to drop in terms of defaults in the CRE debt markets,” said Mark Neely, director of alternative investments at money manager GenTrust. “The loans inside CRE CLOs tend to be for transitional properties, so the borrowers are counting on reselling them before the loan matures. But today many borrowers can’t sell properties for anywhere near where they bought them.”

Bloomberg Evening Briefing: ‘First Shoe’ Drops on Obscure Real Estate Instrument - Bloomberg

 

Fed's Powell says balance sheet drawdown taper coming soon

By Michael S. Derby  March 20, 2024 10:26 PM GMT

WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve is nearing a decision on slowing the pace of its balance sheet run-off, central bank Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday, a tapering move that may allow it to shed more bonds than it once expected.

Powell's remarks, the most explicit so far about plans to slow a process that has seen about $1.4 trillion of bonds roll off the Fed's balance sheet, was seen by several Wall Street analysts as a signal that a tapering plan will be unveiled as early as the Fed's next meeting on April 30-May 1.

"It will be appropriate to slow the pace of run-off fairly soon," Powell said at a press conference following a Federal Open Market Committee meeting. He did not offer a specific time frame for the decision, saying only that officials are now debating the issue.

Powell was addressing the central bank's ongoing efforts to reduce the size of its holdings, commonly referred to as quantitative tightening, or QT.

Officials aggressively increased the central bank’s balance sheet as part of the response to the coronavirus pandemic. Starting in the spring of 2020, the Fed bought Treasury and mortgage bonds in great numbers, first to stabilize financial markets and then to provide stimulus when the Fed’s interest rate target was at near zero levels and could be cut no further.

That quantitative easing, or QE, caused Fed holdings to more than double, topping out at $9 trillion by the summer of 2022. The Fed began to shrink the size of its holdings later that year, having embarked in March 2022 on what would be a robust campaign of interest rate increases aimed at bringing high levels of inflation back to its 2% target.

Since the fall of 2022 the Fed has been allowing up to $60 billion per month in Treasuries and $35 billion per month in mortgage bonds to expire and not be replaced.

The Fed is seeking to reduce the size of its holdings in a way that will ensure the financial system has enough liquidity for the Fed to retain firm control over the federal funds rate, its chief tool to influence the economy’s momentum, and to allow for normal levels of volatility in money market rates.

To achieve that, Fed officials have been signaling for some time that they would first lay out a plan to slow, or taper, the pace of QT given uncertainty over how far they’ll need to shrink their overall holdings.

Officials are mindful of the events of September 2019, when a QT effort then in play unexpectedly drew too much liquidity out of the financial system, causing significant interest rate churn, requiring the Fed to add liquidity back by once again expanding  its balance sheet.

More

Fed's Powell says balance sheet drawdown taper coming soon | Reuters

Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession Watch.

Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.

Inflation drops faster than expected ahead of Bank of England’s interest rate decision

WEDNESDAY 20 MARCH 2024 8:03 AM

Inflation fell faster than expected last month, dropping to its lowest level in nearly two and a half years, as markets brace for the latest interest rate decision from the Bank of England.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that the headline rate of inflation dropped to 3.4 per cent in February, down from four per cent the month before.

Economists had expected a reading of 3.6 per cent.

“Food prices were the main driver of the fall, with prices almost unchanged this year compared with a large rise last year, while restaurant and café price rises also slowed,” Grant Fitzner, chief economist at the ONS said.

Food and alcohol prices rose five per cent in the year to February, the lowest increase since January 2022 and down from a seven per cent increase in January.

Prices for restaurants and hotels fell to six per cent, down from 7.1 per cent. This helped to offset increases in petrol prices and rental costs.

There was good news across the board, with disinflationary pressures looking broad-based. Core inflation – which strips out volatile components such as food and energy – dropped to 4.5 per cent from 5.1 per cent in January.

Services inflation, which the Bank has identified as a key gauge of domestic inflationary pressures, fell to 6.1 per cent from 6.5 per cent in January. While this was a sharp fall, it was largely expected by the Bank.

“This notable decline is further evidence that the UK is fast approaching the finish line in its battle against surging inflation,” Suren Thiru, Economics Director at ICAEW, said.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: “The plan is working. Inflation has not just fallen decisively but is forecast to hit the two per cent target within months.”

The figures come just a day before the Bank of England announces its latest decision on interest rates.

Having peaked at over 11 per cent in October 2022, inflation has fallen much more rapidly than economists expected as the impact of the energy price shock has receded.

Many economists think inflation will return to two per cent in the spring thanks to a sharp fall in Ofgem’s energy price cap. Despite this, the Bank is likely to leave rates on hold when it meets tomorrow.

Alongside progress on inflation, policymakers are looking for further easing in wage pressures. Rate-setters are concerned that stubborn wage growth, which remains at more than twice the level consistent with the Bank’s two per cent inflation target, could prevent inflation returning to target.

More

Inflation falls fast ahead of Bank of England's interest rate decision (cityam.com)

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

People with hypermobility may be more prone to long Covid, study suggests

People with excessive flexibility 30% more likely to say they had not fully recovered from Covid, research finds

Tue 19 Mar 2024 22.30 GMT

People with excessively flexible joints may be at heightened risk of long Covid and persistent fatigue, research suggests.

Hypermobility is where some or all of a person’s joints have an unusually large range of movement due to differences in the structure of their connective tissues that support, protect and give structure to organs, joints and other tissues.

Up to 20% of adults are hypermobile and many of them are completely healthy. Hypermobility can even be beneficial, with many musicians and athletes having very flexible joints. However, it can also create problems, such as an increased propensity to pain, fatigue, joint injuries and stomach or digestive problems.

 

Dr Jessica Eccles, of the University of Sussex, and her colleagues had been investigating a potential link between hypermobility, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and fibromyalgia (a condition that causes pain all over the body), when the Covid pandemic hit.

“We started thinking, if hypermobility is potentially a factor in ME/CFS, is it also a factor in long Covid?” Eccles said.

She teamed up with researchers from King’s College London and examined data from 3,064 participants in the Covid symptom study (now the Zoe health study) to see if they had hypermobile joints, had fully recovered from their last bout of Covid, and if they were experiencing persistent fatigue.

The research, published in BMJ Public Health, found that people with hypermobile joints were about 30% more likely to say they hadn’t fully recovered from Covid-19 than those with normal joints, and were significantly more likely to be affected by high levels of fatigue.

 

Although the study doesn’t prove that hypermobility caused their illness, there is a plausible mechanism through which it could contribute symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog and postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) – where people’s heart rates rapidly increase when they stand up.

More

People with hypermobility may be more prone to long Covid, study suggests | Long Covid | The Guardian

Technology Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, among other things, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported.

The Dawn of a New Era in Tech: Georgia Tech’s Pioneering Development of a Graphene Processor

March 19, 2024

The Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have made a major breakthrough in semiconductor technology by developing the first operational graphene-based chip. This achievement could potentially transform the electronics industry by indicating a future beyond the silicon era, which has been the foundation of all modern electronic devices.

The study, released on 3 January in Nature and spearheaded by Walt de Heer, a physics professor at Georgia Tech, centers on harnessing epitaxial graphene, a carbon crystal structure bonded to silicon carbide (SiC).

This new semiconducting material, known as semiconducting epitaxial graphene (SEC) or epigraphene, features improved electron mobility compared to traditional silicon, enabling electrons to move with much less resistance. This results in transistors that can function at terahertz frequencies, providing speeds 10 times faster than those of the silicon-based transistors found in current chips.

De Heer describes the method used as a modified version of an extremely simple technique that has been known for over 50 years. “When silicon carbide is heated to well over 1,000 °C, silicon evaporates from the surface, leaving a carbon-rich surface which then forms into graphene,” says de Heer.

“The chips we use cost about [US] $10, the crucible about $1, and the quartz tube about $10,” said de Heer.

For decades, the challenge was how to turn graphene on and off so it can function like silicon, the semiconductor that currently powers all our electronic devices. By figuring out how to grow graphene on silicon carbide wafers, the team developed what’s known as epitaxial graphene, which possesses the long-sought band gap.

“There has been some success with graphene nanoribbons, but in principle this technology is very similar to semiconducting carbon-nanotube technology which has not been successful after 30 years of nanotube research,” says de Heer.

Another approach to creating a bandgap in graphene involves introducing wrinkles into the material. Mechanical deformations can result in the opening of a bandgap, with demonstrated bandgaps of up to 0.2 electron volts. (For context, silicon has a bandgap of 1.12 eV, which is considerably larger.) The limited bandgap raises questions about the potential applications of these materials, and the lack of information on their mobilities further complicates the situation.

“Our research is distinct from these other approaches because we have produced large areas of semiconducting SEC on defect-free, atomically flat SiC terraces,” says de Heer. “SiC is a highly developed, readily available electronic material that is fully compatible with conventional microelectronics processing methods.”

The significance of this achievement is underscored by graphene’s superior electron mobility—10 times greater than that of silicon. This could lead to smaller, faster, and more efficient electronic devices.

More

The Dawn of a New Era in Tech: Georgia Tech’s Pioneering Development of a Graphene Processor (msn.com)

Finally, our latest new section, the world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.

World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)

There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.

Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations, 1776.