Morning Brief – Fed moves continue

US stock futures continue to rise and the greenback continues to decline against most major currencies as the post-FOMC policy moves remain firmly in play today.

Notably, the British pound is the laggard as traders stay cautious until the Bank of England decision is out of the way. The central bank is widely tipped to raise rates by 0.50 percent.

Breaking down the FED policy meeting, The Federal Reserve raised the target range for the fed funds rate by 25bps to 4.5%-4.75% in its February 2023 meeting, dialling back the size of the increase for a second straight meeting, but still pushing borrowing costs to the highest since 2007. The decision came in line with market expectations.

Policymakers added that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2%.

And, at the regular press conference, Chair Powell reinforced that the disinflation process is in an early stage and that interest rates are not yet at a sufficiently restrictive level. In determining the size of future rate increases, the Committee will take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the lags with which monetary policy affects economic activity and inflation, and economic and financial developments

Notably, many of the major investment banks were spot on about what unfolded yesterday. With that said, Westpac gives its take on what is coming next after Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statement and Powell’s press conference.

Westpac notes that “With annual CPI inflation having decelerated from 9%yr to close to 6%yr between June and December 2022, and we might add now with a six-month annualised pace of 2%, inflation was seen by the Committee as having “eased somewhat” while remaining “elevated”.

The bank add that “The other change of significance is the focus now being on the “extent of future increases” rather than the “pace” of tightening at December. This small adjustment points to an end of the tightening cycle being near, although the continued use of the “Committee anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate” implies that the baseline peak fed funds expectation of the Committee remains at 5.1%, as per their December meeting forecasts, 25bps higher than both the market’s and Westpac’s expectation.”