By Jamie McGeever
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - TRADING DAY
Making sense of the forces driving global markets
By Jamie McGeever, Markets Columnist
Trump is Fed up
If Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was cautious and mildly hawkish in his outlook for U.S. monetary policy on Wednesday, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde was bold and dovish on Thursday, as the ECB cut interest rates for a seventh time in a year and left the door open to more easing.
Back in Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his long-running feud with Powell, accusing him of "playing politics" and saying his "termination" can't come quickly enough. More on that and more below, but first, a round-up of the day's main market moves.
I'll be off tomorrow as the U.S. stock market will be closed for the Good Friday holiday, but Trading Day will be back on Monday. I'd love to hear from you, so please reach out to me with comments at . You can also follow me at @ReutersJamie and @reutersjamie.bsky.social.
If you have more time to read today, here are a few articles I recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets.
1. IMF expects 'notable markdowns' in growth forecasts, butno global recession 2. Markets see door wide open for more ECB rate cuts ontariff hit 3. Fed winning with its 'cruel-to-be-kind' strategy: MikeDolan 4. A tariff headache for major central banks 5. Why the yen is the wrong gambit in any US-Japan tradedispute
Today's Key Market Moves
* A mixed day on Wall Street, as the Dow slides 1.3%, theNasdaq and S&P 500 end little-changed, while the Russell 2000small cap index gains nearly 1%. * On the upside, Eli Lilly shares surge 14%. On thedownside, UnitedHealth shares crash 22%. * In after-hours trade, Netflix shares spike higher afterthe company announces strong Q1 earnings. * The dollar index, which had been up all day, ends flatafter Trump amps up his spat with Powell and traders trimpositions ahead of the long weekend. * The euro falls on the ECB's dovish rate cut, but trims itslosses late in the U.S. session. * U.S. bond yield curve steepens as the 30-year yield rises6 bps. The 2s/30s curve widens back over 100 bps. * Oil rises around 3% on hopes for a US-EU trade deal, andnew U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil exports. Brent crude is at a2-week high of $68/bbl. * Earlier, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 1.35%, China was flat,and strong gains in tech lifted Hong Kong's Hang Seng by 1.6%. * In Europe, main benchmarks closed in the red.
ECB acts, Trump attacks
In 'normal' times, the ECB cutting rates and signaling it is ready to potentially cut them much further might be expected to be the driving force in world markets that day. The International Monetary Fund's warning of a "notable markdown" in global growth might also have come across investors' radar.
But with the Trump administration triggering a global trade war and seemingly bent on upending the global economic order of the past 80 years, these are not normal times. What is next, Trump firing Powell or forcing him out?
Nobody knows. But one thing is certain - Trump raised the stakes on Thursday to a whole new level, first in a social media post on his Truth Social platform and later speaking to reporters at the White House.
Powell and his colleagues face an unenviable dilemma, one which is a direct consequence of Trump's tariffs - the slowing economy calls for rates to be cut, but rising inflationary pressures might require them to be raised.
Trump clearly wants lower rates, but Powell said on Wednesday the Fed will continue its 'wait and see' approach before acting one way or the other.
The immediate market impact of Trump's latest attack on Powell - and by extension, attack on the Fed's independence - was to erase the dollar's and Wall Street's gains, and keep long-term Treasury yields at their highs for the day.
Looking ahead if this crisis deepens, investors are likely to view it as the latest in a lengthening list of reasons not to hold U.S. assets. That points to a weaker Wall Street, a lower dollar, and higher Treasury yields.
Long-dated yields are already marching higher and the 'term premium' is at its highest in a decade. Faith in the dollar and Treasuries, confidence in U.S. economic policy, and trust in U.S. institutions and governance have rarely been lower.
Fed independence and the prospect, remote or otherwise, of a new Trump-appointed Fed chair before Powell's term ends in just over a year's time will give investors plenty of food for thought over the long weekend and Easter holiday.
Risk of Powell firing is too big to price
Just like a global trade war, the dismissal of the chair of the Federal Reserve by the U.S. President is an event investors know will be unequivocally bad for markets. But it is also a risk that is too far-reaching to properly quantify, meaning the market might be forewarned, but it won't be forearmed.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday escalated his feud with Fed Chair Jerome Powell - who Trump himself nominated in 2017 – writing on social media that "Powell's termination cannot come fast enough" and later telling reporters that the Fed chair is "playing politics".
Trump's social media broadsides against Powell for not cutting interest rates are so numerous that jaded investors could be forgiven for dismissing them. But they shouldn't.
Trump's salvo on Thursday comes only days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for him to fire Democrats from two federal labor boards before their terms expired, a move that some lawyers and analysts argue could leave Fed officials like Powell vulnerable. Powell said on Wednesday he didn't think this applied to the Fed, but he wasn't sure.
This latest tirade comes at an extremely dangerous moment for U.S. and world markets. Faith in the dollar and Treasuries, confidence in U.S. economic policy, and trust in U.S. institutions and governance have rarely been lower.
This is putting upward pressure on the 'term premium' in the U.S. bond market. That's the somewhat amorphous level of compensation investors demand for taking the risk of lending to the U.S. government over the long term rather than rolling over shorter-term loans. The term premium is at its highest in a decade.
It's not difficult to see why investors might be getting twitchy. Faith in central bank independence is foundational in the modern financial system. That's because politically influenced monetary policy may be popular and stimulative in the short term but damaging in the long term.
As former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke said in 2010: "Political interference in monetary policy can generate undesirable boom-bust cycles that ultimately lead to both a less stable economy and higher inflation."
KNOWN UNKNOWN
What makes the situation especially dicey is that even though investors are highly aware of this risk, they can't truly price it in. The term premium has risen, but not anywhere close to where it would likely soar to if the Fed's independence were truly called into question. The risk is too monumental, and the range of potential outcomes is too broad.
That's essentially what happened with the trade war. Tariffs were Trump's number one economic policy on the campaign trail, and he was elected on that platform. It's not for nothing that Trump referred to himself as "Tariff Man."
Yet U.S. markets kept rising after his election, not necessarily because investors didn't believe Trump, but more likely because they simply had no clear way to price in the risk of an all-out global trade war. So even though investors knew "Liberation Day" was coming, markets still gyrated wildly after it arrived.
The S&P 500 plunged 15%, wiping $6 trillion off the value of U.S. stocks in just three days. The long end of the U.S. bond market cratered too, triggering the 30-year yield's biggest weekly rise since 1982, and the dollar sank 3%.
The slump in Treasuries and the dollar was particularly alarming, as they usually rise in times of financial, economic or political crisis. Gold and the Swiss franc had one of their best weeks in decades, but the U.S. "safe havens" tanked.
This is a cautionary tale for markets as tensions rise between the White House and the Fed, especially U.S. markets. If Trump does remove Powell before his term ends in May next year, investors can't say they weren't warned. But it likely won't matter because the consequences are simply too big to price.
What could move markets tomorrow?
* Japan inflation (March)
Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.
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(By Jamie McGeever)
