It wasn't supposed to be like this.
In a massively hyped Federal Reserve policy announcement Thursday — one that threatened to end the nearly seven-year experiment with interest rates near 0 percent and usher in the first rate hike since 2006 — Chair Janet Yellen and her cohorts gave Wall Street exactly what they wanted: No change, in line with futures market odds.
And yet stocks drifted lower, even as the action in the currency and commodities market was as expected, with the dollar falling hard and gold up 0.8 percent. Why?
Cutting to the quick: Investors, it seems, are losing confidence in the Fed.
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While the Wall Street stimulus junkies should've been happy with the continuation of the status quo, there is now a nagging fear that credibility in central bankers is being lost — something that RBS' Head of Macro Credit Research Alberto Gallo took to Twitter this afternoon to reiterate.
Moreover, the Summary of Economic Projections by Fed officials revealed that, at the median, policymakers now only expect a single rate hike by the end of 2015. The futures market is now pricing in a 49 percent chance of a hike at the December meeting (although Yellen noted that the October meeting was "live" and could result in a hike should markets and economic data improve).
But the kicker — the one that pushed large-cap stocks lower into the closing bell — was the appearance of a negative interest rate projection by a Fed policymaker on the newly released “dot plot.” Someone, it seems, expects federal funds policy rate to be in negative territory at the end of 2016. Four officials don't expect any hikes this year at all.
Not only does this undermine confidence in the state of the economy, but it calls into question the efficacy of the Fed's ultra-easy monetary policy stance that has been in place, to varying degrees, since 2008. Moving forward, it will be critical for the bulls to recover from Thursday's intra-day selloff. The day's action resulted in a very negative "shooting star" technical pattern that signals buying exhaustion and often precedes pullbacks.
In their statement, Federal Open Market Committee members fingered recent global economic weakness and financial market turbulence as giving reason to believe that inflation would take longer to return to their 2 percent target. So the new dot plot shows the median rate projection for the end of 2015 falling to 0.375 percent from 0.625 percent as of June; to 1.375 percent for 2016 vs. 1.625 percent before; and 2.625 percent for 2017 from 2.875 percent. The long-term neutral rate declined to 3.5 percent from 3.75 percent, signifying ongoing structural problems in the economy holding down its potential growth rate.
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But a tree should be judged by the fruit it produces. In this case, median household incomes are stagnating despite all the Fed has already done, including three bond-buying programs and the "Operation Twist" maturity extension program. With corporate profits rolling over and global growth stagnating, people are wondering: Is this all the Fed and its central banking counterparts can do? Fresh threats, such as another possible debt ceiling showdown on Capitol Hill this autumn and an election in Greece, are approaching.
As for what comes next, Societe Generale Chief U.S. Economist Aneta Markowska suggests a replay of the late 2013 experience surrounding the beginning of the end of the QE3 bond-buying program: "Our scenario is reminiscent of 2013 when the 'taper tantrum' spooked the Fed in September, a government shutdown spooked the Committee in October, and the fog finally lifted by December when the taper was finally announced."
If the Fed left rates unchanged, there were some new wrinkles in its statement. In explaining their decision, Fed officials elevated issues like global economic growth and the dollar's valuation seemingly above its traditional mandate regarding labor market health. J.P. Morgan Chief U.S. Economist Michael Feroli believes investors shouldn’t read too much into the new factors being cited. In a paraphrase of the infamous rant by former Arizona Cardinals coach Dennis Green: Yellen is a dove. She is who we thought she was. And until higher inflation becomes a clear and present problem, this continual moving of the goalposts for Fed rate hikes — deferring until more data comes in — looks set to continue.
But that may no longer be enough to keep stocks happy.
