Powell will be making two appearances today but at a similar event at the Spelman College. They are late ones and even more so on a Friday, as he is slated to speak at 1600 GMT and then at 1900 GMT. Here’s the agenda:
The first chat will center around “the challenges of the post-Covid economy” before the roundtable discussion kicks off later in the day.
Given the setting, it looks like there could be room for Powell to be questioned on the Fed outlook and the key thing to watch out for now will be his remarks on interest rates. And that will be even more crucial now especially after Fed governor Waller’s remarks earlier this week here.
Will Powell double down on that or will he push back against what Waller had mentioned when it comes to rate cuts and the timing of easing monetary policy? That is the main thing to keep an eye out for.
It is also important to get a sense of what markets have priced in going into Powell’s appearance later today. Right now, there is roughly 115 bps worth of rate cuts priced in for the Fed for next year alone. The first rate cut is priced in for May right now and personally, I think we’re at the limit already in terms of pricing in added dovishness for the Fed.
The current pricing suggests that we are going to see rate cuts come within six months and that is nowhere near what the Fed had suggested with their earlier talk of higher rates for longer. So, are traders getting it wrong or is the Fed eventually going to cave in? I guess we’ll see.