Fed speak suggests rate hike is coming near – Deutsche Bank

Research Team at Deutsche Bank, suggests that amongst the latest Fed comments on Friday, the most notable was the chatter from Rosengren (voter) who is typically seen being a more dovish member of the Fed camp.

Key Quotes

“Specifically he said that a ‘reasonable case’ can be made for a rate hike, helped by ‘modest increases in wages and salaries’ that ‘seem to me consistent with tightening in labour markets beginning to appear more strongly in the wage data’. Rosengren also added that ‘a failure to continue on the path of gradual removal of accommodation could shorten, rather than lengthen, the duration of this recovery’. DB’s Peter Hooper believes that Rosengren is pretty clearly in the September hike camp and his remarks, by themselves, should have moved the odds on September above 50/50.

Those odds did spike up to 38% from 28% following Rosengren’s comments, but some slightly more balanced Fedspeak which followed later in the session saw the September probability actually dip back down to 30% by the end of the day. Indeed it was Governor Tarullo who followed and maintained his usual dovish and cautious stance. He said that while he wouldn’t rule out a hike this year, he remains in the ‘show me’ camp, or in other words wants to see more evidence of firmer inflation. He said that ‘regardless of what measure you use, from my point of view, what is optimal right now is to look to see actual evidence that the inflation rate would continue to go up and would be sustained at around the target’, adding that ‘we’ve had so many false up and downs in the past’.

The final comments came from the relatively centrist Dallas Fed’s Kaplan who said that the ‘Fed can to be patient and deliberate in its actions’ but that ‘I still believe that over the last several months the case has strengthened’.”