El FOMC discute cuándo ralentizar QE3
Genevieve Signoret & Patrick Signoret
Discursos recientes de miembros del comité de política monetaria de la Fed (FOMC) indican que la Fed continuará comprando activos al mismo ritmo hasta finales del año, escribió Barclays ($) el martes pasado. Se refería, entre otros, a pláticas recientes de William Dudley y Ben Bernanke.
Esta perspectiva fue puesta en duda por un discurso de John Williams el miércoles (FT). Williams, considerado una paloma (dove), dijo que, si se cumplen sus proyecciones para el mercado laboral, la Fed podría comenzar a disminuir la velocidad de QE3 desde este mismo verano. Tim Duy piensa que Williams es demasiado optimista y que la decisión de cuándo ralentizar las compras de activos dependerá principalmente de los reportes de empleo de los próximos tres meses.
Hoy fue publicado el primero de estos: fue mediocre. Mantenemos nuestro pronóstico central de que la Fed continuará comprando $85 MMn en activos por mes hasta el final del año y que comenzará a disminuir el ritmo de compras en algún momento de 2014. Por cierto, ¿qué significa ralentizar o detener las compras de activos? Como explicó Janet Yellen el jueves, significa dejar de aumentar el estímulo; no significa retirarlo.
Michael Gapen de Barclays (FOMC communications signal a willingness to be patient, 2 abril 2013, requiere suscripción):
Many FOMC participants have made public remarks following the March FOMC meeting that provide additional detail about how the committee sees the outlook for the economy and monetary policy. Statements by three FOMC voters in 2013 – New York Fed President Dudley, Chicago Fed President Evans, and Boston Fed President Rosengren – and three FOMC non-voters – Minneapolis Fed President Kocherlakota, Cleveland Fed President Pianalto, and Atlanta Fed President Lockhart – are consistent with our belief that the FOMC will remain patient as it assesses the costs and benefits of asset purchases amid a substantial, and increasing, fiscal drag. Our baseline outlook is that the committee will continue its asset purchases at a rate of $85bn per month through the end of the year before tapering purchases in Q1 14.
[…] Benefits of accommodation outweigh costs, but some markets are getting frothy. Many FOMC participants frame the cost-benefit analysis of large-scale asset purchases (LSAPs) using similar language, saying the current benefits of LSAPs outweigh potential costs. […] The use of adjectives such as “potential” and “possible” in conjunction with costs is a clear signal to us that many on the FOMC are assessing costs that the committee believes have not yet materialized.
William Dudley, presidente de la Fed de Nueva York, 25 marzo:
In my view, we should calibrate the total amount of purchases to that needed to deliver a substantial improvement in labor market conditions, by allowing the flow rate of purchases to respond to material changes in the labor market outlook. This makes sense because the benefits of additional accommodation will gradually diminish as we get closer to our full employment and price stability objectives and become more confident that we will reach them in a timely manner. At some point, I expect that I will see sufficient evidence of economic momentum to cause me to favor gradually dialing back the pace of asset purchases.
Of course, any subsequent bad news could lead me to favor dialing them back up again.
[…] I note that the recent improvement in payroll employment growth, which gets much of the attention, is out-sized relative to the growth rate of economic activity that supports it. We have seen this movie before. When this happened in 2011 and 2012, employment growth subsequently slowed. Because growth this year will be constrained by fiscal consolidation, there is a risk that this could happen again. As a result, it is premature to conclude that we will soon see a substantial improvement in the labor market outlook.
El párrafo sorprendente del discurso de John Williams:
I expect that continued asset purchases will be appropriate well into the second half of this year. In making this assessment, I don’t have a specific unemployment or job-gain threshold in mind for cutting back or ending these purchases. Instead, I’m looking for convincing evidence of sustained, ongoing improvement in the labor market and economy. The latest economic news has been encouraging. But it will take more solid evidence to convince me that it’s time to trim our asset purchases. An important rule in both forecasting and policymaking is not to overreact to what may turn out to be just a blip in the data. But, assuming my economic forecast holds true, I expect we will meet the test for substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market by this summer. If that happens, we could start tapering our purchases then. If all goes as hoped, we could end the purchase program sometime late this year..
La reacción de Tim Duy:
The generally dovish San Francisco Federal Reserve President John Williams sounded relatively hawkish in today’s speech.
[…] He is apparently more optimistic than me, as this puts him at least three months ahead of my expectations – I had not anticipated slowing the pace of purchases until late in the year. Of course, the reality will be data dependent, with the next three employment reports being particularly important.
Janet Yellen explicó el jueves 4 de abril que ralentizar o detener QE3 no significa retirar estimulo, sino dejar de aumentarlo:
The Federal Reserve’s ongoing asset purchases continually add to the accommodation that the Federal Reserve is providing to help strengthen the economy. An end to those purchases means that the FOMC has ceased augmenting that support, not that it is withdrawing accommodation. When and how to begin actually removing the significant accommodation provided by the Federal Reserve’s large holdings of longer-term securities is a separate matter. In its March statement, the FOMC reaffirmed its expectation that a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy will remain appropriate for a considerable time after the current asset purchase program ends and the economic recovery has strengthened. Accordingly, there will likely be a substantial period after asset purchases conclude but before the FOMC starts removing accommodation by reducing asset holdings or raising the federal funds rate.