Warsh-led Fed expected to leave U.S. interest rates unchanged

Narayana Kocherlakota, professor of finance at Simon Business School, University of Rochester, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss Warsh's first FOMC meeting.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to hold interest rates steady on Wednesday at the end of the first meeting chaired by Kevin Warsh, with a new policy statement and economic projections likely to reflect growing concern about the inflation stoked by the Iran war even as oil prices slide on peace deal hopes.

With recent data showing strong U.S. hiring, a relatively low 4.3 per cent unemployment rate, and inflation well above the U.S. central bank’s two per cent target, many analysts anticipate the Fed will remove language from its policy statement about “additional adjustments” to its benchmark interest rate, a reference that had been used to indicate likely future decreases in borrowing costs.

Strong U.S. retail sales data for May, released by the U.S. Commerce Department as Fed officials convened for the second day of their two-day meeting, confirmed that the economy’s consumer base had not weakened. Sales were up nearly a full percentage point last month, roughly double what economists expected. Even excluding spending on gasoline that was elevated by high prices, retail sales rose 0.7 per cent versus a 0.2 per cent increase in April.

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Warsh has said he dislikes forward guidance about monetary policy in general, and the continued run of strong data has prompted many Fed officials to say it is time to remove the “easing bias” anyway in favor of more neutral language that allows for the possibility that rate hikes might be needed.

Investors currently anticipate the central bank’s policy-setting U.S. Federal Open Market Committee to deliver a quarter-percentage-point rate increase in December.

“We expect a more neutral bias,” Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JP Morgan, wrote ahead of the Fed’s meeting. “It’s possible the committee, under Warsh, takes a cleaver” to the statement and wipes out rate guidance altogether, whether at this meeting or in the future.

In either case, Feroli said, changes to the statement may win over the three policymakers who dissented in favor of more hawkish language at the April 28-29 meeting, providing Warsh, who has regarded dissent as a sign of institutional health and wants Fed meetings to resemble a “family fight,” a unanimous vote in his first outing.

The Fed’s rate decision, policy statement and updated policymaker projections will be released at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT). Warsh, who replaced former Fed chief Jerome Powell last month, will hold a press conference half an hour later, keeping for now to the schedule adopted by his predecessor.

Powell will continue to be a voting member of the policy committee in his ongoing role as a Fed governor.

In his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing, Warsh said he feels Fed officials talk too much and add too little to the policy discussion, a possible precursor to scaling back his own pace of public appearances and access.

Warsh, 56, who was confirmed last month to a four-year term as Fed chief and a 14-year term on the Board of Governors, took over the top job amid strained relations between Powell and the White House over the former Fed chief’s refusal to deliver the big rate cuts demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The animosity was marked by Trump’s efforts to get more control over the central bank through an attempt to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook, the first such move by a president, and the launching of a since-dropped criminal investigation of Powell.

The U.S. Supreme Court is due to decide this month on whether Cook can keep her job. While the ruling is expected to go in her favour, it could still have important implications for Fed governance in the future.

Powell, who attended Cook’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing, has been lauded broadly for resisting Trump’s pressure on the central bank. Warsh has not spoken directly on the Cook case or the pressure campaign against his predecessor.

Economic uncertainty clouds outlook

Though Warsh starts on a new footing with Trump, the path to rate cuts may be narrowing.

The updated quarterly projections being released this week are expected to show Fed officials at the median no longer see the policy rate falling this year, but instead remaining steady in the current 3.50 per cent-3.75 per cent range amid higher anticipated inflation and possibly a lower year-end unemployment rate. Some officials are likely to pencil in a rate increase.

Warsh’s debut press conference may well be dominated by broad questions about his plans, which in the run-up to his nomination by Trump for the top Fed job included frequent criticism of the Powell-led central bank’s overall approach to policymaking and communications, calls to lower its holdings of financial assets, and promises of extensive reform.

But there are fast-moving short-term issues as well, notably the apparent end of the U.S.-backed war with Iran and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

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While that development has sent world oil prices plunging towards levels seen prior to the start of the conflict in late February, Fed officials will now have to assess how much inflationary pressure may be left to come due to the recent jump in energy costs and what is anticipated to be a lengthy restart to global commodity shipments through the strategic waterway.

With the global oil price around US$80 a barrel and some faith that a ceasefire in the Middle East might endure, “so far the impact on inflation looks more like the usual pass-through from large oil shocks,” and won’t require Warsh to raise rates, David Mericle, chief U.S. economist at Goldman Sachs, wrote in an analysis of this week’s meeting.

But rate cuts are likely to be on hold until at least the middle of next year, if they happen at all, given that headline inflation is expected to rise above four per cent in the coming months and remain higher than three per cent through 2026.

“A long pause would increase the probability that the FOMC could instead decide that the (federal) funds rate is already in an appropriate place if the economy continues to perform well,” Mericle said. “We see a flat path as a plausible alternative.”

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns and Paul Simao)