Vijay Kumar Gaba

 “Higher interest rates, slower growth and a softening labor market are all painful for the public that we serve, but they’re not as painful as failing to restore price stability and having to come back and do it down the road again.” – Jerome Powell, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) decided to hike the policy rate by another 75bps taking the federal fund rate to 3.0%-3.25% range; the highest level since 2008.

In the post meeting press statement, the Fed chairman Jerome Powell reiterated Fed’s commitment to bring down the inflation to its target level of 2%. The Fed officials indicated that the Fed would keep hiking rates further till the terminal rate of 4.6% is reached next year. This implies another possible 75bps hike in November, followed by a couple of smaller hikes in the two subsequent meetings. Quelling the market expectations of a cut next year, the fed officials hinted that no cut is seen in 2023.

Six of the nineteen FOMC members even see the terminal rates at 4.75%-5%, implying a 175bps further hike till 2023 end, before the Fed begins to scale down in 2024, bringing the rates back to below 3% only in 2025.

It is pertinent to note that there is no precedence of Fed hiking so aggressively since 1990 when the overnight funds rate was adopted as its primary policy tool. In 1994, Fed had hiked 2.25%, resorting to cuts the very next year. US Inflation had probably peaked at 9.1% ( CPI, yoy) in June, before easing to 8.3% in August.

Indicating a recession-like condition in 2023, in their quarterly estimate of rate and economic outlook, FOMC stated that unemployment rate may rise sharply to 4.4% in 2023 from the present 3.7%. FOMC scaled down its estimates for economic growth in 2023 to 1.2% and 1.7% in 2024, reflecting a bigger impact from tighter monetary policy.

From this month, the Fed has also accelerated its quantitative tightening program with US$95bn/month reduction in its US$8.9trn balance sheet.

The Fed decision did not bring any surprise for the market, as the consensus was for a 75bps hike, with a minority expecting even a 100bps hike.

·         The US benchmark indices ended the day with sharp cuts after a highly volatile session.

·         USD Index (DXY) strengthened to over 111, its highest level since April 2002.

·         Industrial metals and crude ended with over 1% cut, while Silver (2.2%) and Gold (0.6%) were higher. Bitcoin lost over 2%.

·         Bond markets quickly priced in the growing risk of a recession as the Treasury yield curve further inverted. The 2-year treasury yield over 10-year Treasury yield inverted to beyond 50-basis points.

Indian markets are also expected to open with a cut of about 1%.