沃什：若通胀持续高企，美联储必须行动

So we had, of course, Federal Reserve chair Kevin Walsh delivering his first speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium on Friday, telling central bankers responsibility for increased inflation lays fully with the Fed. Take a listen. Now there is one signal nobody can miss. The responsibility for sixty five months of sustained elevated inflation sits squarely with the central bank, and that's where it belongs.

So here is my standard. We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective clearly and at sufficient speed. Otherwise, we have work to do. That's our job, that's our mandate, and that's our charge to keep. And for more on what we heard from Walsh and the Fed's path forward, we're joined by Kevin Gordon, head of macro research and strategy at Schwab here in the studio, and Ann Mieltti, she is the head of equity investments at Allspring Global Investments.

Kevin, I wanna start with you. It felt like listening to speak. Initially, I was like, oh, this is nothing, burger. Nothing new. But the more I spoke with people afterwards, my mind changed. What was your takeaway initially? So I think that, really, this speech was the set of remarks we were looking for in July after that press conference. This essentially sort of, I think, rightsizes and and corrects for what was this ambiguous kind of message coming from from the chair after that July decision to to, you keep rates steady.

So I think that it was certainly what a lot of people were looking for, I think, more than cleared the bar for what the consensus was coming into this because there were a lot of questions over whether he was gonna even talk about inflation and labor and the dynamics of the economy. So the fact that you did get this more laid out scenario in his his economic analysis, I think, is really him catching up to what the rest of the committee has been doing, talking about, maybe not explicitly his pure reaction function, but at least talking about how he's seeing the economy.

What are the drivers? Business investment being a strong one. Are financial conditions restrictive? Him not seeing that right now, especially even with weakness in housing and agriculture, he made that specific call out. Even though you're seeing weakness there, I mean, that's where rate cuts would help. He's not seeing that as a case to be made that the broader economy is under this pressure from Fed policy right now.

So I do think that he he certainly checked a lot of boxes in terms of what investors were looking for, and I think probably most importantly, really reaffirmed that commitment to PCE being the target and then 2% being also the inflation target. So the metric and also the the rate of change. You know, firmly, I think recommitting to that was was crucial, especially because in the last meeting, again, there was a little bit of ambiguity around whether he was going to look at a different set of metrics and not necessarily PCE.

Yeah. And I think when you look at those first remarks and then these remarks, the thing that struck me is the pledge that he would take action. Right? He says, you know, if if you don't have confidence, then we've got more work to do. I thought that was significant. I'm also wondering if you think this is him trying to wrestle monetary policy back away from his associate over at the treasury who's been making some moves lately.

So, you know what? I think that he has been really, really focused on what his mandate is, and I think he tried to describe that pretty well yesterday. I think his message was much sharper than it has been in the past. And as an equity investor, I was thrilled to hear him talk about the strength of the economy, like Kevin just mentioned, but also clearly focused on inflation and what they need to do to keep it in check.

And so, look, I know there's a lot of talk between monetary and fiscal policy and how those two work together, but I think right now, Kevin is staying in his lane. And I think the market's more comfortable, if anything, that we have a sense of the direction going forward. And, Kevin, I just wanna come back to this whole idea of keeping an eye on that 2% inflation target and what that ultimately means and expectations for what is a very much live September meeting.

Barclays came out saying they expect a a hike in September and then another one in December. Yep. How are you thinking about the path forward? So we're still in the wait and see camp because I think that, you know, the first step to clearing the the way for a rate hike in September is, of course, having someone like the chair come out and say, we're very much actively considering it if the data point to that in that direction.

So the onus is really on that next set of inflation data. I think the labor market data probably still take a backseat to it even if you get a strong jobs report, you know, next this coming Friday. I'm not so sure that that really changes the game or a weak one. That doesn't necessarily change the game much. I think it squarely rests on what CPI and PPI look like and then ultimately how that maps over to PCE. So I do think that if it's firm or a little bit hot, that probably does give you a lock for September, but we have to wait and see what what the rest of the the FOMC says.

So it's still probably a little bit too early to assume that's gonna be the case. But did mention that inflation is, in his mind, not gonna come down just by itself back to target. So at some point, if you continue to see relatively sticky pressures, especially on the service society of the economy, which is where you're seeing a lot of stickiness and inflation, you're probably gonna have to have the Fed respond to that sooner rather than later.

I also feel like I just learned what the dot plot was and why it matters. And now and, apparently, it doesn't matter anymore, and kinda doubled down on his rejection of forward guidance, in his speech. And I'm wondering, you know, as our equity guest, do you think he's right that markets shouldn't be moving off of these potential potential Fed moves? Ann, the question's for you. Sorry. I didn't have heard. Yeah. Go ahead.

No. No worries. I I do think that, it's interesting because equity investors are used to both companies that give guidance and companies that don't give guidance. And there is a lot of fundamental work that needs to get done. Clearly, it's a lot easier if somebody tells you the path, and we've been kind of hooked on having that, little bit of drug for a long time. It was very, very clear what direction the Fed was going.

There's a little bit more ambiguity in the system now, but I think, again, he pointed to the right things yesterday for all of us to pay attention to. And, you know, we can do a lot of the work ourselves. We are clearly focused more on company fundamentals, but the macro does matter and the bond market does matter and we're and rates matter. And I think where the impact we're seeing right now is just, you know, the increase in corporate borrowing rates, what that will do, how do we model that into our projections for the future.

But I think right now the equity market is pretty comfortable with the direction, even though we may not have explicit guidance going forward. And, Ann, you mentioned fundamentals and corporate fundamentals. How do you think a Fed that hikes potentially in September as Barclays called out and potentially again in December, how would that kind of impact your view around asset allocation? What areas within the equity market would you want more exposure to or less exposure to?

Yeah. That that's a great question. I think, you know, we're pretty comfortable that, you know, we believed coming into the year. We were kind of done raising rates. I do think we've adjusted going into midyear thinking that rates will increase. I think the equity markets have adjusted as well. But I would say they've adjusted because earnings growth has been

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