A no-surprise Federal Reserve

Mid-week market update: I told you so. Earlier in the week, I wrote that the market had become overly hawkish about interest rate expectations (see Hawkish expectations). Leading up to the November FOMC meeting, the Fed had signaled that a QE taper is about to begin and, if everything goes along with projections, the first rate hike would occur in late 2022.

Fed watcher Tim Duy added (before the meeting) that the Fed had unveiled its spanking new FAIT framework and it was unlikely to abandon it so quickly.

The Fed doesn't want to drop the new framework at the first sign of trouble. The issue of full employment still obstructs the path to rate hikes. If the Fed were to pull tapering forward, the implication would be either the Fed is abandoning its new shiny new framework or that it has redefined full employment. Remember, there is institutional inertia at play here...The new framework sets the Fed apart from its central banking peers that are quickly pivoting in a hawkish direction. Indeed, the new framework is intended to prevent such a pivot, which means that if the Fed were to move in the BoC/BoE/RBA/RBNZ direction, it would amount to abandoning the new framework.

We got a dovish taper, which is what I expected. The 2-year Treasury yield eased in reaction to the FOMC decision and the yield curve steepened.

The full post can be found here.