For today we expect the Fed to focus just on tapering and say as little as possible on where rates are going and when...Powell believes that the Fed should start tapering in the next few weeks and end by the middle of next year... We do not expect him to speed up that process like BOC did last week... Again, the managing of the next 8 months of tapering will be done by the next Fed Chair... And Biden said yesterday that decision will be announced soon... Whether it is Powell, Brainard, or Bostic is yet to be announced...
Rates... Mild Bull Flattening this morning, but that is the calm before the storm... The next big move, which may take until London time tomorrow, could be a large steepening led by a rally of the short end...we can see 5 years, which got to our objective last week of 1.25%, could get all the way back to .92 basis, although there are plenty of resistance points, 1.04 being the next... Or the higher rate regime could start right away...we think the tapering and the transferring of rate risk from the Fed to the street will take some time...but when it does, we expect higher rates.... And a steeper curve...
BB wrote two stories about how hedge funds in the last month having gotten crushed in the yield curve and directional trading... 4 HF's have suspended over 10 traders who have met their loss limits...these moves in the curve have been brutal. Two Funds are down over 18%... Frost Asset Management is mentioned losing over 18% in October with yield curve plays in global bond markets... And Chris Rokos, of Brevan Howard Fame, was down over 20% as of October 22.
Bill Dudley, former Fed VC and previously head of the NY Fed, is out with an opinion piece saying that the Fed has to go to much higher rates for a neutral rate than markets anticipate... He is not particularly clear, but at the end of the opinion piece he says the template the Fed should use is 2004-2006, we remember it well... Where Fed Funds went back to 5.25%... He has said things like that before and has not been correct...
Our three scenarios for today are the same as yesterday... We think this is the most important Fed meeting in a long time... And while very little may be said today, it is what the Fed does not say that is important... And it should be a dramatic move, but first wave starts tomorrow... And the bigger wave could take some more time...