In Wall Street’s interpretation, the Federal Reserve all but promised on Wednesday that its next change to interest rates will be a cut.
The question is how much.
The central bank’s nine increases since late 2015 have all occurred in increments of 25 basis points. Policymakers slashed them in larger steps — as much as 75 to 100 basis points — in the Fed’s last reduction cycle, however, and Chairman Jerome Powell didn’t set any size limits in a news conference.
“Markets are now pricing in a very high probability” that the Fed will cut rates at the monetary policy committee’s next meeting, on July 31, with a good chance that it will be 50 basis points rather than 25, said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management. “Powell lent support to the idea that starting with a larger cut might be appropriate under current circumstances.”
While Haefele himself expects a 50-point cut, he noted that it will depend in part on whether President Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, manage to negotiate a cease-fire on tariffs at the G-20 summit in Japan later this month.
The White House has rattled markets and corporate executives with 25% duties on $250 billion of Chinese imports and threatened to tack them onto another $325 billion of goods if the two countries can’t reach a deal to give American companies more access to China’s markets and halt Beijing’s appropriation of U.S. technology.
The tariffs, which drive up prices of goods sold in the U.S., come on top of levies on steel and aluminum. Trump has also threatened duties on auto imports as well as on goods from Mexico if that country doesn’t live up to his expectations on curbing illegal immigrant traffic across the southern U.S. border.
“We have been mindful of some ongoing crosscurrents, including trade developments and concerns about global growth” that have heightened over the past six weeks, Powell said during the news conference.
“My colleagues and I will be looking to see whether these uncertainties will continue to weigh on the outlook,” he added, describing growing support for a reduction even though policymakers left the benchmark federal funds rate unchanged at 2.25%-2.5% on Wednesday
The Fed “sent a clear message,” said Michelle Meyer, economist with Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America. “The next move is a cut. The only question now is the timing.”
If hiring in June doesn’t improve from a disappointing performance in May, when only 75,000 jobs were added, manufacturing data remains weak, and Trump and Xi don’t reach a compromise, then the Fed is likely to trim rates in July, she added. Otherwise, policymakers may simply continue gathering data and wait until September to make a change.
Bank of America predicts the Fed will cut rates as much as 75 basis points, taking them to a range of 1.5%-1.75%.
That might soothe some of the tension in Trump’s relationship with Powell, the Fed chairman he hand-picked to succeed Janet Yellen. Powell fell from favor less than a year after his 2018 appointment when the president blamed December stock market volatility on the central bank’s four rate hikes within a 12-month period.
Trump, who was told that he lacked the power to fire Powell without cause, has alternately berated and pushed the Fed, ramping up the pressure this week. Trading in interest-rate futures tracked by CME Group now indicates a 64% percent chance the central bank will trim rates by 25 basis points in July and a 36% chance it will cut them as much as 50 basis points.
The Fed’s own projections show eight of the 17 meeting participants believe at least a 25 basis-point cut will be needed before year’s end.
The outcome “was more dovish than we anticipated,” said Michael Gapen, an economist with British lender Barclays PLC. “The Fed delivered everything but a rate cut.”
