December 2024 FOMC Debrief

Hello my friends, today is December 18th and this is my December FOMC debrief. So we just had the last FOMC meeting of this year and before we get into what happened let's take a step back and level step. So today was a meeting where we had a dot plot where this fed kind of gives you a sense of how they're thinking about the world. The last time we had a dot plot was in September and at that time the fed was having a bit of a panic. So in the September dot plot they were basically suggesting that you know GDP is going to slow a lot to two percent unemployment rate is going to jump to 4.4 percent and inflation is going to come down. Basically they were in a panic that we would have a recession and so they were forecasting that we would have no another cut today in December. Now between then and now economic data has consistently surprised to the upside we've had. The unemployment rate 4.2 percent below what they were expecting, GDP growth close to 3 percent and inflation a little bit hotter than they expected.

你好，我的朋友们，今天是12月18日，这是我对12月FOMC（联邦公开市场委员会）会议的回顾。我们刚刚结束了今年最后一次FOMC会议。在讨论会议内容之前，我们先回顾一下背景情况。今天的会议中，我们看到了一张点阵图，这张图大致反映了美联储如何看待当前的经济形势。上一次我们看到点阵图是在9月份，那时美联储有些紧张。在9月份的点阵图中，他们基本上表示GDP将大幅放缓至2%，失业率将上升至4.4%，而通货膨胀将下降。他们当时担心可能会出现经济衰退，并预计今年12月不会再次加息。然而，从那时到现在，经济数据一直表现优于预期。失业率为4.2%，低于他们的预期，GDP增长接近3%，通胀也比他们预想的略高。

Now even after all of this positive data the fed still decided to cut. So a lot of people were kind of scratching their heads again why are they cutting today. Now to be clear the Fed never surprises the markets or tries not to and so the market fully priced in today's cut already. It was a little bit unsure a couple weeks ago but after Governor Waller came out and gave his nod to rate cut and data continued to cooperate the market was pretty sure we'd get a cut today. And so today's meeting was unequivocally hawkish. Now I was surprised I was thinking we would have a devilish meeting but no it was unequivocally hawkish. Now the hawkishness comes largely through the feds dot plot. Now the market again last time they were penciling four cuts for next year heading into the meeting today the market pricing was suggesting two cuts next year and the economist surveyed were suggesting three cuts on the dot plot but the dot plot today surprised the survey and it actually met the market at suggesting just two cuts for next year. So again that is a hawkish surprise. Now the rationale behind this more hawkish dot plot was that the Fed all around upgraded their economic forecasts. They were thinking that growth is going to be better on employment was going to be better and basically everything is going to be better next year than they had expected and so because of that they're thinking that they don't need to cut rates as much.

尽管有这么多积极的数据，美联储还是决定降息。所以很多人感到困惑：为什么今天降息？需要澄清的是，美联储从不让市场感到意外或尽量避免意外，因此今天的降息已经被市场完全消化。几周前还有点不确定，但在美联储理事沃勒支持降息后，加上数据继续支持这一决定，市场逐渐确信今天会降息。因此，今天的会议显然是鹰派的。我有些惊讶，还以为今天的会议会偏向鸽派，但事实确实是鹰派的。这种鹰派立场主要体现在美联储的利率点阵图上。市场上次预计明年会有四次降息，但今天会议前的市场定价显示明年将会有两次降息，经济学家调查则显示三次降息。但今天的点阵图意外与市场的预期一致，建议明年只降息两次。这是一个鹰派的意外。这个更鹰派的点阵图背后的理由是，美联储全面上调了他们的经济预测。他们认为经济增长、就业等各方面都会比预期更好，因此认为没必要像原先那样多次降息。

So many people are asking okay well if everything is fine why are you cutting rates at all. And I think digging deep into the conference I think the answer to that is that in his heart of hearts, Chair Powell thinks that inflation is over so he's not really concerned about it and he is more concerned about the rise in unemployment. Now we kind of had a taste of how Chair Powell thinks about inflation at his November conference where he was basically you know pointing to three month annualized inflation is coming down six month annualized is coming down. A lot of inflation is just you know lagging shelter which we all know is eventually going to come down. He's very very upbeat about inflation. Now between November and now we did have an inflation print that was higher than expected. So it seems like he he had to kind of reconcile that a little bit but when push came to shove this is what he said. I would say I'm confident that inflation has come down a great deal and I'm confident in the story about why it's come down and why that portends well. And I'll tell you why.

很多人都在问，如果一切都好，为什么还要降息。我想深入探讨会议内容，答案是鲍威尔主席内心深处认为，通胀已经结束，所以他并不特别担心通胀，而是更担心失业率上升。在他十一月的会议上，我们对他如何看待通胀有了一些了解，他基本上指出三个月的年化通胀率在下降，六个月的年化通胀率也在下降。很多通胀只是滞后的住房成本，这些成本终将会下降。他对通胀非常乐观。不过，从十一月到现在，我们确实有一个高于预期的通胀数据。因此，他似乎需要调和这一点，但在关键时刻他说了这样的话：“我有信心通胀已经大幅下降，对其下降原因的解释也很有信心，我会告诉你原因。”

Again you do see with housing services inflation which is one that we've really worried about. It really has come down now quite steadily at a slower pace than we thought you know two years ago but it's nonetheless steadily coming down as as market rents you know at market rents in the circuit to equilibrate better with you know new leases that turn over. Not new tenants but new leases. Market rents is new leases. So that's happening that process is ongoing pretty much as we expect.

再次提到住房服务的通胀问题，这是我们一直以来非常关注的一个领域。现在，它确实已经相当稳定地下降了，尽管下降的速度比我们两年前预期的要慢，但它始终在稳步下降。随着市场租金更好地与新的租赁合同（而不是新租户）调整，这个过程正在进行中。市场租金指的就是这些新租赁合同的价格变化。可以说，这个调整过程基本上在按我们预期的方式发展。

Goods inflation which is another big piece of it has returned right to the range where it was before the pandemic. Just for some months this year it kind of moved up in a bumpy way because of used cars and things like that but we think overall that should generally be in the range it was in that that leaves non-housing services and market-based non-housing services are in in good shape it's non-market services and those are those are services that are imputed rather than measured directly and and they don't we think they don't really tell us much about the you know about tightness in the economy they don't really reflect that. I mean a good example is financial services which is really done off of asset prices and that just you know that's how that inflation works and none of them. So the overall picture the story of why inflation should be coming down is still intact.

商品通胀是另一个重要因素，目前已经回到了疫情前的水平。今年有几个月因为二手车等原因，它曾短暂波动上升，但我们认为整体上应该会保持在疫情前的范围内。这其中就剩下非住房类服务，而基于市场的非住房类服务情况良好，问题在于那些非市场服务。这些服务是通过推算得出，而非直接测量的，我们认为它们不能很好地反映经济的紧张程度。一个典型例子就是金融服务，它主要依赖于资产价格，而这也就是其通胀运作的方式。因此，通胀应当下降的原因还是成立的。

Basically he's saying that you know we divide inflation into different components looking at goods you know they're about where they were before the pandemic. Now looking at services yeah yeah they're a little bit hot but then you know you got to break out housing which we know is lagging and it's coming down and looking at now in housing services you can further break that down into services that are that we have transactional prices so market-based and services that are imputed which are basically done through a mathematical formula or survey. So he says looking at these services that are marketable let's say the price of meat, price of eggs and stuff like that they're already you know on time towards 2% everything's okay.

基本上，他的意思是，我们将通胀分为不同的组成部分来看待。在商品方面，它们大约和疫情前的水平差不多。现在看服务业，是的，稍微有点热。但是，你知道，我们得分开看住房，这一块通常滞后，也正在回落。进一步看，住房服务可以再细分为两类：一类是我们有交易价格的市场服务，比如说肉价、蛋价之类的，这些已经逐步朝着2%的目标发展，一切都还不错；另一类是通过数学公式或调查估算的服务。

The reason that services is high is because of this non-marketable imputed stuff. For example imputed stuff would be stuff that is not actually transactional. A very famous part of imputed stuff in PCE is owners equivalent rents where people are surveyed where do you think your home would rent if you were to rent it. Basically trying to gauge how homeowners are experiencing shelter inflation. Again that's not market-based it's just a survey it's an imputed measure and that stuff seems to be keeping inflation high.

服务价格之所以这么高，是因为存在一些不可交易的估算因素。比如说，这些估算因素并不是通过实际交易产生的。消费者支出中的一个著名例子是"房主等效租金"。这是一种通过调查的方式，询问房主如果出租他们的房子，估计能租多少。这种方法是试图了解房主在面对住房通胀时的感受。强调一点，这并不是基于市场的，而仅仅是一种调查得出的估算，而这些估算因素似乎导致了通胀居高不下。

Now what I take away from this is that Chirpao is kind of twisting himself into circles to kind of explain to everyone why that inflation although the index continues to show an above 2% but when you look one level beneath looking at the components it's really just stuff that's either lagging or just stuff that's not really an accurate measure of inflation. So again to me I take that my takeaway is that was really dovish. Again he is not worried about inflation. Although to be clear when you are Fed Chair you are the boss but you still have to manage a whole other people who's opinion matters to varying degrees. Today's FOMC meeting we did get one dissent by a Fed president and this person was not even mentioned in the Q&A she's not particularly important but she is a very smart person but I think it's just useful to know that even after this hawkish dot plot he was not able to get across the board consensus.

我从这段话中了解到，Chirpao有点绕来绕去地解释为什么尽管指数仍显示通胀高于2%，但如果深入研究其组成部分，其实只是一些滞后的或不太准确衡量通胀的东西。所以，我的理解是，他的态度其实相当温和。再说一遍，他并不担心通胀。需要明确的是，虽然作为美联储主席，您是负责人，但仍需管理一大批人的意见，而这些意见的重要性各不相同。在今天的美联储公开市场委员会会议上，有一位联邦储备银行行长提出不同意见，但在问答环节并未提及此人，她并不是特别重要，但确实是个很聪明的人。我认为知道这些还是很有用，即便是在这个比较鹰派的点阵图之后，他也无法达成一致意见。

So some degree of a little bit about internal political disagreement over there maybe she wasn't the only one. So in any case the outcome was a more hawkish dot plot. Now the other takeaway from this is how Tripao was taking about unemployment. So we all know that the unemployment rate has been gradually rising over the past a couple years. Now his view on this is you know somewhat upbeat not totally. Now you could have a rise in the unemployment rate through more firings right that's what we don't want to see but he's saying that the rise in unemployment rate not so much increased firing it's just the hiring rate is really low. And so as our population grows as new people graduate from the schools and enter the workforce or as laid off people try to find new jobs you know that hiring rate is really low and that's the reason why the unemployment rate will continue. Oh has been rising and from his view will continue to take up a bit every couple months.

所以，在那边的内部政治分歧可能有一定程度的影响，也许她并不是唯一一个持不同意见的人。不管怎样，结果是出现了一个更为鹰派的“点阵图”。另一个值得关注的点是Tripao对失业问题的看法。大家都知道，过去几年中失业率一直在逐渐上升。他对此的看法是略显乐观但也不是完全乐观。通常我们不希望看到的是失业率上升是由于更多的裁员，但他表示，失业率上升并不是因为裁员增加，而是由于招聘率非常低。随着我们人口增长，新毕业生进入职场，还有被裁员工努力寻找新工作，招聘率低是失业率上升的原因。因此，在他看来，失业率每隔几个月可能还会稍微上升一些。

So all in all the market again took a look at the dot plot. Rates screamed higher you got the across the curve rates screamed higher and that strengthened the dollar significantly that kind of took down a lot of you would say instruments that are related to the dollar like gold and of course the equity market totally totally tanked.

综上所述，市场再次关注点阵图，利率急剧上升，整个收益率曲线上的利率都大幅上升，这显著推高了美元，这种情况也导致与美元相关的很多资产下跌，比如黄金。当然，股市更是大幅下挫。

So the market is kind of in a seems the market was in in a bit of a shock today by this but looking into the conference qualitatively I didn't find it to be particularly hawkish and I still think that we are probably at peak hawkishness for the Fed but I guess we'll find out in the coming months.

因此，市场似乎对今天发生的事情感到有些震惊。但从质的分析来看，我并没有发现会议特别鹰派。我仍然认为我们可能已经处于美联储鹰派政策的顶峰，不过我想我们会在未来几个月内见分晓。

All right so that's all I prepared. Today I also did an interview with Felix of Ford guidance and that'll be out shortly as well. All right talk to you all this week this weekend on Saturday. All right bye.

好的，我准备的内容就是这些。今天我还采访了福特指导公司的费利克斯，这个采访不久后也会发布。好的，那我们这周六见。再见。