PNCCIO：能源驱动通胀令美联储决策复杂化

Joining us now is Amanda Agati. She's chief investment officer at PNC. Amanda, how do you think that this week's inflation data impacted that Fed decision that was expected to see on Monday? Did it pretty much make this a fait accompli, or could there still be a surprise in possible inaction coming from the Fed? Well, it's great to be with you guys. Good morning. I think the Fed is probably blasting the clash right about now.

Should I stay or should I go? I mean, clearly, the market thinks that the data this week says we're go. Right? We're 25 basis points higher, if not two rate hikes in the balance of the year. And I've been saying this for a while. I am not convinced that that's the right answer. I'm not convinced that 25 basis points even makes much of a difference given what's driving inflation, what the macro backdrop looks like, but I think the Fed is still in a tough spot.

So I don't know if they have it figured out quite yet, but the market seems to think it's figured it out. That's the clash rings in my my ears here. Let's dig into those numbers a little bit more. So, obviously, the the headline number is startling, but we can attribute a lot of that to the war, the rising cost of of energy. What stood out to you from that report? And as you kind of think what think through what these policymakers are going through in that meeting next week, I imagine there's still some tendency to say, look.

This maybe this is a short live thing. There's a concern here about doing too much at a moment when there still is a lot of uncertainty, Amanda. Yeah. I mean, I don't wanna get too bearish about it because I think the backdrop continues to be really strong. Economic growth has surprised the upside. It this is not an economy that's running hot per se. Let me call it warm. How about that? For for a technical term for you, the the earnings growth backdrop is really strong.

So, you know, there's no real reason to get overly bearish here in this moment. I think the the challenge is just do policymakers need to intervene? And so my concern, if there is one right now, is that, you know, it's not about 25 basis points, as I said, but the further we go with this, do we start to run the risk of a policy error? When, as you said, a lot of these forces, a lot of the exogenous forces that are driving the backdrop now that were not necessarily present at the beginning of the year are really impacting the the trajectory of inflation.

Right? If we weren't in The Middle East and I'm not trying to take a political stance here. I'm just saying if we weren't there, you know, we have a very different backdrop as it relates to oil and gas and energy prices, commodity prices, etcetera. And when you look at the data on Friday, there's a huge difference between headline and core. And so that's the thing that I'm worrying about. Like, how how long is it gonna take for some of these forces to settle down outside of what I think the Fed may or may not need to do?

And and frankly, I'm just not sure that 25 basis points can really help. It's really gonna harm, I think, those that need support, in this environment. It's been interesting watching this conflict, along with the markets, and I I've been calling this indefatigable optimism. You're seeing anytime there's a whiff of a deal, see, oil prices drop and markets rebound. That is happening less and less. And I'm wondering based on what you just said, if you think the markets have finally reached the point where they the burden of proof in the numbers is gonna be higher, that they are doubtful that this is going to resolve and are acting like this is the state of play going forward for the foreseeable future?

Well, I think there is certainly some element to that. You know, the markets are really trying to figure out very quickly how far geopolitical conflicts are gonna go in terms of impacting energy policy, energy supply. Sometimes in in the past, we've seen weaponizing, right, of energy from policymakers and conflicts, and so that has catalyzed pretty significant corrections in the market historically. That's not what's happening here necessarily.

I think the challenge is that it's going on far longer than what the market had anticipated. I myself said, if we were still talking about this in June, Houston, have a problem, right, as it relates to the backdrop. And so I think the market is starting to hunker down a little bit for this lasting a lot longer than anybody would like. And in the case of the bond market in particular, the bar bond market is saying no.

Right? For for a lot of different reasons, the bond market is sort of casting its vote early on this particular topic. And so it's just a very different backdrop, a different confluence of forces, and I think it is leading to a stalling out of the equity market here in the short run. Bond market, no bueno. See, these are the bond market terms that I can get my head around. I'm like that. We'll turn it on Monday. He's gonna love it.

Let me ask you lastly, Amanda, just about how much anxiety there is about AI in Pittsburgh where you are in the city of of bridges. There's been so much in the market this week. And I look at what we heard from Oracle yesterday, the demand for cloud computing so huge over the last quarter. Lisa Mateo, a moment ago talking about how much demand there is on Microsoft for for cloud computing capacity. You know, we see we feel the anxiety, but is it manifest yet in the company in the broader tech sector at this point?

I think it's actually less anxiety, less paranoid Android for a radio head reference. Don't know what your radio head reference is. Anytime Amanda, please. I've had many cups of coffee. Okay. So We'll get the iPod ready for your next appearance. Yeah. Sorry. Continue. Let's do it. Let's play list it up. I think the the sort of peak, investor investor anxiety anxiety or sentiment, you know, paranoia around all things AI happened earlier.

Q two earnings season really, I think, demystified, dispelled a lot of that. And so it's really not the thing at the moment that I think the market is focused on. It's really Fed, treasury, rates, CPI, and and what the path forward holds. So I think it's still swirling in the background. It's just not the top of mind topic at the moment. And when the fundamentals came in so strong and in such a broad based way for q two earnings season.

I mean, 51% year over year earnings growth on the s S and P 500 is just, like, mind blowing. Right? So so I think it dispels this this anxiety about, is there anything there there? It's it's gonna come back home to roost. There's no question. Investors wanna know, where that sort of peak or that inflection point in CapEx spending is, what return on invested capital is gonna look like. I'm not sure we got a lot of clarity out of that out of q two earnings season, but we still think it's early to mid ending mid innings.

There's there's a lot of runway left in that AI cycle.