Hello my friends today is July 15th. My name is Joseph and this is markets weekly This week was an exciting week in markets. So we have a lot to talk about First last week I was thinking the top was in in the risk asset markets And I was 1000% wrong and the market still looks like it wants to go higher now, this is a Point of concern that I've been talking about for some time and we'll talk about it throughout this session But first as usual we're going to talk about three things First we're going to talk about the big news of the week the CPI data is inflation dead are we going back to pre 2020 levels does that mean that the Fed is going to cut rates very soon? Secondly we got to talk about what's happening in Japan because if you look at the yen and the Japanese bond market It looks like more and more people are anticipating a change in yield curve control And lastly we have to talk about a debate that's happening within the Fed right now And that is whether or not monetary policy really acts with long and variable lags because if it Doesn't well, then we got to keep hiking rates Okay, starting with inflation.
So at the beginning of this week the 10 year was above 4% risk assets were no digesting a bit and then boom We had a CPI report that was softer than expected both in headline and in core And it was notably softer such that many people were looking at this and Saying that you know inflation is over if you were looking at social media You would have noticed that many people who initially said that inflation was transitory Basically jumped out and began doing their victory dance And of course as we all remember back then they were saying that inflation was transitory so the Fed doesn't need the hike rates In fact inflation was not transitory and the Fed Hiked rates by 500 basis points and inflation is still here. So those guys are still totally completely wrong That being said Is inflation actually over did the Fed Perform a quote-unquote soft landing where you know inflation was really high now. It's calmed down back to 2% Are we going to say smoothly sell at this 2% rate for the foreseeable future? The world goes back to how it was before 2020 and then everything is okay, you know the economy continues to grow and of course Soon the Fed will have to cut rates because with inflation of 2% we don't need the Fed funds rate of 5% right? And so the markets saw that and began to rally remember one of the biggest biggest determinants of risk assets is the stance of policy back for for the past few months Everyone was thinking recession Fed cuts rates. So, you know, you got to buy risk assets now It's inflation is over if it's going to cut rates. So you got to buy risk assets And you know what it's possible that inflation really really could be tamed. That's a possibility So if you follow me for any length of time, you know, that's not really how I think about it So I would actually Before we go further, I would actually point to a few other things that that we have to keep in mind.
Well first Recall just a few episodes ago. We talked about what happened in Canada and in Australia In those two countries, they got some good inflation prints the central banks stood up patted themselves on the back and announced a pause and then within a Couple months they began to see that actually inflation seemed to be re-accelerating what they were looking at was really a false dawn and so they began to start hiking again and indeed the Bank of Canada who declared victory in January only to hike again last month hiked again this past week Even looking at the US itself you can remember a couple summers ago that the US had inflation that that seemed to be going Way only to see it surge higher. So We could be seeing a false dawn It's it's not really clear yet. We need to have more data
now Here's an interesting fact from the 1970s and 80s Here this is a chart of inflation back then and you'll notice that inflation rocketed up strongly like a rocket ship then After climbing Mount Everest, it seemed to tumble down precipitously And at that point you could imagine when inflation was tumbly down like that that maybe they were maybe that it was over Maybe that the Fed could have at that time high cut rates and then we would have backed to normal But instead as you can see from the chart inflation did not stay low but began to turn around and rocket hire again Such that looked like two mountains next to each other rather than a mountain and a flat line Now the question on everyone's mind after the CPI print is Is inflation dead or is this a false dawn as it was for the Bank of Canada Bank of Australia and For the US in recent history and in history long ago It's not easy to know at this moment again if you follow me You know that I believe that there are structural reasons where inflation will continue to rise First off of course we have significant deficit spending that continues to create demand and of course from the supply side We have an aging workforce. So every day boomers are retiring and we're going to need more people to do all that work And that's going to keep wages high which means that people can continue to buy stuff and You know afford higher prices So even if inflation were to come down a bit if you have wage growth continuing Because of a shortage in labor then that just means that growth will accelerate which of course is supportive of inflation So so far it's not super clear which of these scenarios would play out the market though It seems very very much willing to believe that inflation is over. So you can see that the tenure yield Went down a lot after the CPI print and of course stock market went up higher again There are many people thinking that you know, this is a new bull market. We did the soft landing Everything is going to be okay got to buy risk assets because if that is going to cut soon I personally am very cautious on that now
Secondly, let's talk about what's happening in Japan. So if you look closely at what's happening in the big Japanese asset markets So you want you see the Nikkei basically, you know kind of At least not rocketing hires seemingly just meandering about you see the yen strengthening significantly again So dollar now below USD GPI below 140 and you also see the you the 10 year JGB move higher towards towards the upper bound of yield curve control, which is a 0.5% Now all of this taking into account Suggests that there is probably some change in monetary policy now There are reports suggesting that the Bank of Japan might finally finally been toggling their yield control framework
So as you recall, we've talked about this before Japan has an inflation target of about 2% which they've been missing terribly for for a for a very very very long time but recently Inflation in Japan seems to be making a comeback in fact. It's higher than their target now We've heard clips from a new Governor of the Bank of Japan wait on suggesting that you know or Or forecasts are that even though inflation is above target now. It's going to come down soon And if it doesn't come down, then maybe we'll just start stance of monetary policy So in the whole world as even as the Western countries Okay, so even as Europe and North America
Continue to high grades and have this big inflation problem Bank of Japan Actually hasn't changed your monetary policy stance at all. So there's been a lot of speculation as to whether or not they'll finally do it That speculation is playing out in the markets right now Now, I don't know if this is going to happen or not But if it does I think it's going to be a shock to the financial system. So if the Bank of Japan were to Become more I guess restrictive adjust their yield curve from trophy and more maybe away from From 5% being a ceiling for the 10 year JGB yields to be 1% being a ceiling You can expect that to reverberate throughout the global bond markets now global bond markets are if you look at any graph You'll see that they're they're tightly connected This is because investors are global if you are an investor in Japan and you don't like seeing let's say 0.4% yield on the tenure There maybe you move your money to somewhere else and so because investors are mobile You know, they they're comparing returns across different jurisdictions and because of that a global bond market is sent to move together
So if the Bank of Japan would be would were to be more hawkish that would impact global bond yields and possibly spill over to global risk assets As well, you're seeing the Nikkei kind of chomp around a little bit. You could easily see See that being a headwind for other risk assets as well now We'll have to wait and see so It's going to be definitely something we want to watch for this month and if not this month there are other meetings The belief is that eventually it'll have to happen. It's just not really sure when it will happen
Now the last thing we'll talk about today is Whether or not monetary policy acts with long and variable lags and let me tell you why this is important So there's a big debate in the Fed today As to whether or not they should continue to hike now if you are in dove at the Fed So you don't want to fit the hike and what you'll say as your reason is that monetary policy acts with long and variable lags So a lot of the tightening that we've done over the past year Actually hasn't been felt in the economy yet Now if you are a hawk you want to hike rates and you'll just say that actually, you know We did a whole bunch of tightening and it's mostly been felt so or monetary policy tightening It's not going to be slowing the economy down anymore and the economy is still going strong So if we want to have additional constraints on economic activity, we need to continue to hike Now Additionally, the dogma is the received wisdom from the central banking community is that there are quote-unquote long and variable lags to policy Let's say your hike rates today and maybe you know that effect might be not be felt Maybe not till 12 months maybe 16 months maybe Two years since since since since the initial decision Now I find that to be really suspect because the more The more time that elapses between when you do something and when and when something actually happens The less you can attribute a cause between the two So if I bang on a table and the table immediately cracks Well, I can say very clearly that you know cause and effect I banged on the table and it cracked If I bang on the table and maybe five hours later it cracked Well, I think it's a lot less clear if what I had caused the crack a lot of time in between Means that a lot of other factors were playing in as well. So it's more difficult to lash into that cause But but so that that's one part now the other part is that so If you are a dove you're going to point towards this literature of received wisdom and says, you know Longer variable lags stuff Now the Hawks are having our have a much more interesting argument And I think it's worth thinking about because governor Waller just talked about it in a speech this Friday And his argument for shorter lags to monetary policy are twofold First is that markets today anticipate the Fed a lot more than markets in the past Now in the past we had a Fed chairman's like Alan Greenspan who would actually high-grates and not tell you about it So and there were no, you know, there were no con press conferences. There weren't very many speeches So you don't really know what the Fed was thinking so What would happen is that you know the Fed would do something and then you would have all these people kind of look at interest rates It's kind of guess to see whether or not the Fed did something and people many people would find out after the fact That's very different from how central banks operate today today, you know, the Fed gives a whole bunch of speeches press conferences writings and so forth, so they're very transparent so When the Fed although the Fed first hiked rates early last year the market was anticipating that the Fed would do so months in advance So before the Fed actually does its first rate hike a lot of that is already priced into the markets. So so in a sense Monetary policy is having an impact on the economy even before the Fed actually does anything And you can see that in the two-year yield which began to rise months ahead of the actual rate hike last year So because of this likes are logically shorter right the way that monetary policy is Conducted is very different from the past and this makes complete sense to me the second argument that Governor Waller gives is that you know when you're hiking big there's going to be less of a lag than when you're hiking small So for example if you're hiking Let's say 25 basis points and that makes your mortgage rate go up a little bit That's not really going to affect behavior that much.
So someone looks at their mortgage and says, you know, that's okay Fed hiked rates So instead of let's say 4.2 percent my mortgage is 4.3 percent whatever But because I've had hiked rates so aggressively from like zero to 500 basis points You know that same person is is looking at this and saying oh my gosh. I have a 7% mortgage rate That that's definitely going to get my attention and change my behavior so From that perspective, you know bigger rates hikes catch the intention of the public more easily and this more directly impact their behavior And that makes sense to me as well
So according to him and from my read Chairman Powell is also in agreement with this view of the world. They think that a lot of the rate hikes have already filtered through to the economy. So if you want to continue to slow the economy down, you'll need more hikes, and governor Waller continues to pencil in two hikes for the rest of the year. Although he notes that if we continue to get soft CPI prints, maybe we only need one. Oh, by the way, it's totally 100% sure that the federal hike in in July, that that's pretty much baked into the cake.
Right now we're heading into what's called the blackout period. So no more fed speakers and they left it at the assumption that the fed would be hiking rates in July. So that should be done. Now going forward what we're have to see is CPI data and how this debate about Long and variable legs continues to evolve in the Apple MC. So far, of course, the default is we get more hikes. And if it does turn out that CPI continues to be weak, I think we'll probably be the end of the hiking cycle in July. Again, we're gonna have to see the data and the Fed will hold here for the next several months, but again, that's something we'll have to see.
Although of course the market is already very Ebulante and assuming that inflation is over. Okay, if it is over, you know, the market is totally right. If it's not, I think you have a real chance of what appears to be a mania unraveling rather quickly. Okay, so that's all I've prepared for today. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like what I'm producing, remember to like and subscribe. And if you're interested in hearing more about my more in-depth thoughts about the markets and the financial system, check out my blog FedGuy.com. And if you're interested in learning more about how I how to understand the markets, I recommend my course central banking 101. Excuse me, markets 101 at central banking 101.com. which is a series of courses on how to understand markets and the same course that I would teach our new traders at the Fed's trading desk. All right. Thanks so much. Talk to you guys next week.