Rate Decision Coming Up This Week

The BOC will be announcing its next move on rates on the week of October 28th. Whether they stay even or go down is a big question, but they most certainly won’t be going up anytime soon.

If rates do go down, expect the recovery and renewed dynamism in the GTA real estate market to be reinforced, and given added momentum. If they stay the same, the higher price and strong demand trends will stay healthy. Most experts predict that the BOC won’t cut rates. The number is low as is and the economic overall is perceived to be in very good shape. While BOC policy generally does not diverge much from the monetary policy of the Fed, many market watchers expect that the Fed’s recent push to lower rates and revive QE (quantitative easing) won’t be necessary in Canada. Unlike the U.S., Canadian politicians rarely criticize or even talk about the BOC at all. At the height of the very high interest rates of the mid 90s, the Bank was politely scolded, and politicians sent letters asking for rate relief. Lately in the U.S., as many of us know, the President is openly at war with Fed Chair Powell; his own appointee. The C.D. Howe Institute, an elite, neoliberal think-tank based on Bay St. is calling for the BOC to hold off on rate cuts now and to wait until early 2020 for cheaper money.

In Washington, the consensus appears to point toward a 3rd consecutive cut in rates by Chair Powell this week. U.S. economic data is weakening, with manufacturing and housing showing slowdowns and the bulk of now much more subdued GDP growth dominated by consumers maxing out their credit cards and increased government spending. The Fed has also quietly began to increase its book of financial assets, and has long since ended its previously strong commitment to incremental reductions of its massive balance sheet. This basically that the Fed is once again buying assets, intervening in the market, and artificially raising asset prices while providing cheap money stimulus to Banks. There is growing repo activity, where the Fed is selling government bonds to investment only to buy them back within days at higher prices – effectively providing the buyers with excess capital that is not loaned. Repo activity is oversubscribed lately and is running the many tens of billions of dollars. This suggests a need for capitalization among U.S. financial organizations. 

As Tembo predicted, the once high GDP growth achieved months ago by a Trump tax cut and low interest rate stimulus is now falling back into traditional territory. If Powell does cut rates again, it will signal that the Fed is both concerned at U.S. economic data and also sensitive to the pressure and open criticism it is facing from a President who refuses to temper his language and who revels in his own bombast. Under Trump, the U.S. federal deficit is climbing again and is now close to the $1 trillion dollar mark. If the U.S. goes into a protracted and deep recession, it will have little wiggle room, little capacity for sustainable government fiscal stimulus, and almost no room to lower rates. A recession anytime soon would likely spell serious political trouble for a President who is staking his political future on a booming stock market, stable economy, and gradual, albeit ephemeral foreign policy retrenchment. 

On The End of the Era of Central Bank Independence

It’s all over folks. We’re going down a new road. After intense pressure from President Trump and other members of his Administration to lower rates and boost stimulus, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell folded.

In his latest Committee Hearing with the House of Representatives in Washington, Powell outlined his view that the U.S. economy was showing signs of weakness and that the Fed would intervene more actively to stimulate it. Tembo watched the Hearing carefully and noted a stark shift in tone for Powell to a much more accommodating rhythm with a more humble persona than his usual confident, lawyer-investment banker stern self. Powell was in full listening mode. The transformation from Hawk to Dove is complete for Powell. This shift marks what is in many ways the end of Central Bank independence. Never again will the Fed be able to march on with its policies undeterred when a political figure with as volatile a record as Trump threatens the Chair with termination.

What was interesting about the hearing was the fact that Powell said that the Fed’s current huge balance sheet (now in the many trillions of dollars) was not an issue in again buying stocks and bonds ‘if it decided to do so.’ In other words, Powell was saying that even though we’ve become such an interventionist, buying bank to the tune of trillions of dollars, we’re happy to buy more if we need to. The Fed’s shift in tone was so strong that gold prices surged to multi-year highs. Markets enjoyed the capitulation of the Fed and showed solid gains. The Fed’s shift is a big win for Trump, as the political benefits from the likely economic gains from stimulus will help the President as he gears up for the 2020 election. Not since President Lyndon Johnson’s era in the late 1960s has a Fed Chair been under so much pressure from a President. But unlike the privately intimidating Johnson, Trump has been arms length, open, and very public about his disdain for the Fed’s unease of more stimulus and lower rates.

What this all means is simple. The Fed is now almost guaranteed to lower rates. It will also be much more open to reigniting the quantitative easing it pursued in the immediate aftermath of the last recession (buying assets in the open market). It is a huge political win for Trump, as his unadulterated, raw strategy of open criticism has now yielded results. When Trump started criticizing Powell he was widely mocked and attacked from across the spectrum. Nobody was used to this, and in previous political eras it would have been inconceivable for a mainstream, run of the mill politician at any level to attack the Federal Reserve or its Chair. For Canada, the Fed’s surrender will result in huge pressures on the BOC to cut rates as the game to lower the value of the dollar and lower the cost of money overall now begins in earnest.