Bonds, Stocks, Gold Tumble After Fed’s Williams Comments

Who could have seen this coming?

And now Fed speakers start to backtrack on the pivot

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 14, 2023

It appears the message is not unanimous among The Fed heads.

In a comment almost perfectly opposed to that of Fed Chair Powell, NY Fed’s JohnWilliams appeared on CNBC and poured cold water on the idea of imminent and ongoing rate-cuts.

“We aren’t really talking about rate cuts right now,” Williams said in an interview on CNBC.

Which is odd given that Powell said that:

‘Rate cuts are clearly a topic of discussion out in the world and also a discussion for us at our meeting today.’

When asked about cutting interest rates in March, Williams said “I just think it’s just premature to be even thinking about that.”

The NY Fed head agreed with Powell on something:

“As Chair Powell said, the question is: Have we gotten monetary policy to a sufficiently restrictive stance in order to ensure that inflation comes back down to 2%? That’s the question in front of us,” he said.

“It is looking like we are at or near that in terms of sufficiently restrictive, but things can change,” adding 

“One thing we’ve learned even over the past year is that the data can move and in surprising ways, we need to be ready to move to tighten the policy further, if the progress of inflation were to stall or reverse.”

Williams said he was optimistic the recent improvement on inflation would continue and give the Fed the scope to consider rate cuts later next year.

“If we get the progress I am hoping to see on inflation and the economy, then of course it will be kind of natural to move monetary policy over a period of a few years to a more normal level,” he said.

Additionally, Williams noted that the market may be reacting more strongly than Fed’s forecasts suggest…

And so the market moved.

Stocks dropped…

TSY yields jumped…

Gold dumped (as the dollar pumped)…

And the odds of a March rate-cut are plunging…

Mutiny? Or just good-cop-bad-cop to cap the exuberance?