At the beginning of the month Wall Street was confident—but not convinced—that it would be getting its much-anticipated interest rate cut come September.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's Jackson Hole speech sealed the deal for many that a reduction is indeed imminent. The rate currently sits at 5.25%—a more than two-decade high.
But a combination of economic data and hints from FOMC members—including Powell himself—is now leading analysts to wonder if the cut will be more significant than previously expected. Powell's "risk bias" is changing, according to some.
Previously the likes of Bank of America and investment fund Vanguard had factored in a cut of 0.25%, or 25 basis points (bps), next month, but arguments for a 50 bps (0.5%) cut are beginning to gather pace.
JPMorgan, for example, this week said it is expecting the Fed to cut by 100 bps—an entire percentage point—by the end of the year.
With just three meetings left that would mean at least one of the cuts would have to be 50 bps, paired with two cuts at 25 bps.
The shift in expectations comes as turbulent data continue to make the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) dual mandate harder to read.
That double mandate is to bring down inflation—which thus far it has been relatively successful in doing without plunging the economy into a recession—but also maximizing employment.
A report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics this week revealed that unemployment rates in metropolitan areas are creeping up while demand for workers is softening.
Conversely, productivity is on the rise, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said earlier this month.
This has created an "odd combination of rising concerns about a U.S. slide into recession alongside financial market optimism about the future path of business sector performance," JPMorgan wrote in a note this week.
The bank added in the note seen by Fortune that the Fed is shifting from a gradualist attitude to a fear of cutting interest rates too late.
This concern was aired by Fed chairman Austin Goolsbee in an exclusive interview with Fortune earlier this month.
He cautioned: “The conditions were very different when we set the rate at this level. Every month that we get an inflation like the one we just saw—where inflation is lower than expected—we just tightened in real terms."
As a result he's asking himself, and his fellow FOMC members, to ponder: "When does the Fed really need to be that tight?"
“The answer is you only want to be that tight for as long as you have to and if you’re afraid that the economy is about to overheat,” he explained. “This, to me, is not what an overheating economy looks like."
“So I do think we need to be cognizant of being this tight for too long, because if we are, we’re going to have to think about the real side of the mandate, and employment is gonna get worse.”
Fed is reevaluating risk
Whether experts are pricing in a 25 bps cut, a 50 bps cut, or even an emergency off-schedule cut, one thing they can all agree on is that the FOMC is changing tack.
In his speech at Jackson Hole last week, Chair Powell said: "The time has come for policy to adjust. The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks."
This suggests Powell and his peers are looking to balance both sides of their mandate, writes Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel in his weekly comment for investment experts WisdomTree.
In his commentary on Monday, Siegel wrote: "While Powell commented that some of the increase in unemployment is due to increased labor supply, he also highlighted a clear softening in the labor market and that further weakening is not welcomed."
The emeritus professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania falls into the camp of cutting the base rate—currently between 5.25% and 5.5%—"to 4% or less without delay."
"In other words, [Powell] will not seek to use higher unemployment as a force to finish the job of getting inflation to 2%. This is a very important shift," wrote Siegel, who is also a senior economist at WisdomTree.
While JPMorgan may not subscribe to Siegel's call for an immediate cut, analysts at America's biggest bank have also noted the change in Powell's "risk bias," as they call it.
"Last week's communication from Chair Powell's Jackson Hole speech confirms that this shift in risk bias has taken place and that the Fed does not want to see labor conditions ease further," they wrote.
"We believe it puts the Fed on track to deliver a roughly 100 bp step-down in rates by the end of this year."
In the event the Fed doesn't cut rates at all this year, not only would Powell face a market mutiny but that would also risk plunging the economy into a recession, some analysts think.
"We're not saying that a recession is coming," wrote Thierry Wizman and Gareth Berry, FX and rates strategists at Macquarie in a note seen by Fortune, but added without cuts "a recession would be much likelier."
