Powell Needs To Immediately Address Negative Rates Or He Will Lose Control
Today was a historic day, not for the latest algo-driven meltup in stocks, but because for the first time ever, fed fund futures priced in negative rates, first in January 2021 and shortly after, as recently as November 2020.
In response to the dramatic move which reverberated across asset classes, sending stocks and gold sharply higher, and 2Y yields plunging to record lows as markets suddenly realized that NIRP may be coming in just a few months, Richmond Fed president Thomas Barkin said that it’s not worth trying negative rates in the US:
“I think negative interest rates have been tried in other places, and I haven’t seen anything personally that makes me think they’re worth a try here.” He then added that “if you looked at data as of today, you’d see it about as low as it’s going to go. We’ll be bringing people back to work, and eventually hopefully people back to stores and the like, in the coming weeks and months, and I would expect the data to go up from here.”
But one look at fed funds after Barkin’s comments showed that markets barely noticed, with December implied rates still in negative territory.
Which means that only Powell addressing this issue – immediately – can reverse the market’s test of the Fed’s resolve to go from ZIRP to NIRP, because the longer Powell does nothing, the more negative rates will become widely accepted, and any “unexpectedly” denials by Powell in the coming months would be seen as hawkish reversal and lead to another market crash, which the Fed will argue nobody could have possibly seen and be forced to cut to negative anyway.
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