(Bloomberg) -- Jerome Powell faces a tricky task this week of both assuring investors the economy remains on solid footing while also conveying policymakers stand ready to step in if necessary.
Even as the Federal Reserve chair has touted US resilience, uneasiness sparked by President Donald Trump’s rapidly escalating trade war has sent stocks tumbling over the past month. Bond yields are down, too, as is consumer sentiment as worries about the economic outlook mount.
“Powell needs to give some sort of a signal that they’re watching it,” said Dominic Konstam, head of macro strategy at Mizuho Securities USA. While the Fed chief will likely make it clear that officials don’t target the stock market, they can’t ignore the recent slide, he warned.
The Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates steady when they meet March 18-19, but traders now see high odds of three rate cuts this year, most likely beginning in June. Economists generally expect two reductions, similar to what forecasters foresee policymakers’ updated projections to show Wednesday.
Some investors caution that if officials continue to signal only two reductions in 2025, it becomes all the more important for the Fed chief to emphasize the central bank’s willingness to adjust borrowing costs if the labor market stumbles.
“At the margin, the Fed could make it slightly better or slightly worse,” said James Athey, a portfolio manager at Marlborough Investment Management. “But clearly they can’t completely calm markets because the hit to sentiment has come largely from the White House.”
On top of the escalating and ever-changing tariff threats toward America’s largest trading partners, the Trump administration hasn’t done much to downplay recession risks. The president said March 9 that the US economy faces a “period of transition,” and his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noted the US and markets are in need of a “detox.”
Market Reaction
The two-year yield, most sensitive to the Fed’s monetary policy, has declined almost 60 basis points from a mid-January peak to a trough this month of 3.83%, the lowest level in over five months. And while stocks advanced on Friday, the move came after a selloff that culminated in a 10% plunge of the S&P 500 from its peak. Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge — the VIX — at one point last week climbed to the highest levels since August.
Those market jitters have ramped up the stakes as officials release fresh economic projections that stand to offer insight into how much officials anticipate Trump’s policies will affect the economy. Policymakers are expected to slightly downgrade their forecasts for growth this year and bump up their outlook for so-called core inflation, which excludes food and energy.
But Powell will likely be reticent to guarantee investors the Fed will spring into action at the first signs of a faltering economy without a key caveat: Officials need to see evidence inflation is sustainably moving toward their 2% goal and that expectations for future price growth remain stable.
“We’ll hear the message that things are still holding up, and that policy is in a good place where the Fed can react in either direction — whether that’s stubbornly high inflation or a more marked slowdown in the economy,” said Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co. “Now what I would like to hear more is just getting more clarity on how they are weighing the two sides of their mandate.”
While consumer prices rose at a slower pace in February and the producer price index was unchanged from a month earlier, the components that feed into the Fed’s preferred inflation measure — the personal consumption expenditures price index — were largely firmer. A closely watched measure of long-term inflation expectations climbed for a third month to a more than three-decade high.
Such data limits the Fed’s ability to act and bolster the economy until the weakness starts to appear more directly in the labor market, said Matthew Luzzetti, chief US economist for Deutsche Bank AG. That could show up in the form of weaker payroll gains, a rise in the unemployment rate or a spike in layoffs, he said.
“There’s lots of uncertainty that’s out there, and it’s possible that that filters into the hard data, but they are going to be in kind of a wait-and-see mode to see whether or not that happens,” said Luzzetti, who does not expect the Fed to lower rates this year. “At the same time, I think they’re seeing greater evidence that their job on inflation is not done.”
If the Fed were to confront a weakening economy amid still-elevated inflation, about two-thirds of economists in a Bloomberg survey said they would expect officials to hold borrowing costs steady.
Complicating the outlook is the possibility that other policies proposed by the Trump administration, such as tax cuts and deregulation, could boost the economy and inflation in the months ahead. Powell and his colleagues have emphasized they are watching to see what the “net effects” of Trump’s policies will be on the economy and want more clarity on the overall impact before adjusting policy.
“Despite elevated levels of uncertainty, the US economy continues to be in a good place,” Powell said earlier this month at an event in New York, his last public remarks before officials gather this week. “We do not need to be in a hurry, and are well positioned to wait for greater clarity.”
Balance Sheet
Wall Street strategists will also be keen for any hints on the Fed’s plans to pause or further slow the speed at which the central bank is reducing its balance sheet — a process known as quantitative tightening or QT. Minutes of the January gathering revealed policymakers had discussed the potential need to pause or slow the process until lawmakers can strike a deal over the government’s debt ceiling.
“The argument for March is that the Fed has already talked about it,” said Blake Gwinn, head of US rates strategy at RBC Capital Markets. “So why not just do it — as they can pause QT and then just restart it later.”
What to Watch
Economic data:
March 17: Empire manufacturing; retail sales; business inventories; NAHB housing market index
March 18: Housing starts; building permits; import and export prices; New York Fed services business activity; industrial production; capacity utilization; manufacturing production
March 19: MBA mortgage applications; net long-term and total TIC flows
March 20: Current account; initial jobless claims; Philadelphia Fed business outlook; leading index; existing home sales
Fed calendar:
March 21: New York Fed President John Williams
Auction calendar:
March 17; 13-, 26-week bills
March 18: 52-week bills; 6-week bills; 20-year bond reopening
March 19: 17-week bills
March 20: 4-, 8-week bills; 10-year TIPS reopening
--With assistance from Kristine Aquino, Nazmul Ahasan, Ye Xie and Maria Eloisa Capurro.
