Markets tanked on Tuesday—the Dow fell 1.35% to 38,272.75, the Nasdaq 1.8% to 16,655—after the Fed missed its latest inflation target. What does this mean longer term?
Experts who spoke to Fortune said that it almost certainly means any rate cuts rumored for March, or even May, will be punted until at least June.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest Consumer Price Index, prices rose 3.1% in January after gaining 3.4% in December—a vast improvement from the 9.1% peak seen during the COVID-19 pandemic—but still far off the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%. Still, the reported 3.1% missed the Fed’s sub-3% goal.
“What this number will do is give the Fed every excuse to not cut the interest rates in March,” Desmond Lachman, a senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute, told Fortune. But delaying the cuts, he added, likely means that more-aggressive cuts will be required later.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management co-CIO for Multi-Asset Solutions, Alexandra Wilson-Elizondo, while acknowledging the seasonality of the January report, also noted how core CPI, which doesn’t include spending on food and energy, was 3.9%. Many experts prefer focussing on the core CPI figure because it’s considered a less volatile and more reliable metric.
“There remains a risk that the long and variable lags of higher rates will impact consumers and lending, and some yield curve signals are still flashing red,” Wilson-Elizondo said in a statement to Fortune. “While the broader economy has shown resilience in the face of rate hikes, there have been some signs that are inconsistent with an economy growing above trend.”
A few negative indicators highlighted by Wilson-Elizondo include the continued rise of credit card and auto delinquencies. But, overall, there’s now a higher likelihood of a soft landing given the new data.
“In the January press conference and subsequent interviews, members of the Fed have been actively pushing against a March cut. This led to a repricing of rates from the beginning of the year,” Wilson-Elizondo said.
For his part, Lachman predicted that the Federal Reserve will end the year with a 3.5% interest rate, down from the current 5.25% to 5.5%, because of the looming commercial real estate crisis, which is dragging on regional banks that hold the loans and mortgages.
“What the Fed is not doing is not paying sufficient attention to the real slow-motion train wreck of the commercial property sector,” Lachman added.
The CPI report is similar to JPMorgan’s latest inflation forecast, published Feb. 9 by the firm’s chief economist, Michael Feroli. His most recent note, which correctly predicted a decline in energy prices, cited the 353,000 new non-farm-related jobs and declining jobless claims as an indicator that the economy started February on strong footing—but that 2% inflation remains a ways off.
“Inflation has cooled significantly relative to earlier boomy highs from the past few years, but still remains above target. Weakening in core goods inflation has been an important moderating force for overall inflation, but core services prices excluding housing have cooled much less noticeably lately,” Feroli wrote. “Absent a recession next year, we don’t see inflation getting all the way back down to 2%.”