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[Insights for Aug. 2023] Inflation is under control?! Can the US achieve a soft landing?
Just at last month's FOMC meeting, the Fed again decided to hike interest rates by 25 basis points, the 11th rate hike since last March.
Market evaluation of this round of interest rate hike can be described as “former unancients” and may be “after no comers”. Why, the following figure will see at a glance.
![[Insights for Aug. 2023] Inflation is under control?! Can the US achieve a soft landing? -1](https://courseimg.futunn.com/202308100000662708885a5cb45.png?imageMogr2/quality/100/ignore-error/1)
The most steep rise in the figure is this round of rate hike path, have to say compared to this time, the past few times simply “weak burst.” With the rise of interest rates, the world's eyes gathered on the issue of the US economy. One of the most relish is to say“Will the economy be soft landing or hard landing”?
A short investor will probably think that “interest rates have taken off, I don't believe it, this can still be a soft landing?”
In fact, this is also one of the most common questions on the Fed's radical monetary policy since last year. But as inflation really declines,Inflation and employment scales are not severely inclined to one party—That is, the US labor market is still strong! At this time, some analysts who look down on the US economy have to admit that they were slammed up.
So, is it true that a soft landing can occur in the US as economic data is concerned?
Let's analyze it step by step.
First of all, ask you a question,What is soft landing?
In fact, this does not have a quantitative standard, but we think,A soft landing is when inflation gradually approaches its 2% target and when there is no serious recession in the economy and employment.Do not look at the definition of this sentence, in fact, when the real operation is difficult to achieve, requires accurate judgment and certain luck of policy institutions.
soHas the US ever achieved a soft landing?
The answer is, implemented too!
When? during 1994-1995. Under the leadership of Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Fed,Successfully raised interest rates to 6% without a serious recession. This hike is the red line we see in the picture above.
Specifically, let's take a look at how he did it? According to Bloomberg analysts, the chart shows from four dimensions: as interest rates rise, inflation declines, unemployment rates have not risen significantly, and GDP for measuring the US economy has slowed down, but still at more than 2% growth.
![[Insights for Aug. 2023] Inflation is under control?! Can the US achieve a soft landing? -2](https://courseimg.futunn.com/202308100000662587252e11606.png?imageMogr2/quality/100/ignore-error/1)
![[Insights for Aug. 2023] Inflation is under control?! Can the US achieve a soft landing? -3](https://courseimg.futunn.com/20230810000066263b1bcc64d4a.png?imageMogr2/quality/100/ignore-error/1)
In addition, there are several times in the United States as well as “relatively gentle landing”!
Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Brinde said that in the past half century, the Fed has achieved some other “fairly soft landings”. One of them was 2001, when the Fed started raising interest rates two years ago, leading to an extremely mild, eight-month recession, which affected only -0.1% of real GDP.
Since the United States has succeeded, then shouldn't it be “stable” this time?
Don't forget, this round of inflation was a 40-year high and the “fastest and strongest” rate hike ever. We are at the most crucial moment of this round of interest rate hike node, success or failure in this fight, the Fed is also working in the direction of soft landing.
What we can see is that inflation, measured by CPI, has seen a significant downside. Structurally, the main sub-items of pulling CPI, energy and commodities have fallen from the high, and energy has even been negatively pulled.
However, it is difficult to say that inflation will “all the way down” in the future. Why?
Because we look at CPI more than the year's data, and last June was the month that CPI hit a new high! Since July, the data has slipped all the way, that is, in June this year, due to last year's high base impact, the high cardinalization effect will gradually disappear. On the other hand, it can be seen that services are still supported in the CPI, which may be hard to say in the short term. This can also be observed from the strong service PMI and service employment increase.
![[Insights for Aug. 2023] Inflation is under control?! Can the US achieve a soft landing? -4](https://courseimg.futunn.com/2023081000006630ba58a6607ac.jpg?imageMogr2/quality/100/ignore-error/1)
Since the service industry is mentioned, let's take a look at the performance of the service industry and other indicators.
In the measure of manufacturing PMI, ISM released July PMI rose from June, but still below the 50% dead line; in contrast, services PMI is another sight. Services PMI has been above the wire since this year. Although the latest reading fell to 52.7% from 53.9% in June, it was still above 50%, showing a higher service boom.
In view of the employment situation announced by the Labour Bureau, new non-farm payrolls in July were slightly lower than market expectations. Unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, labour participation rate remained unchanged at 62.6% and average hourly wage decreased slightly year-on-year. In the industry, highly skilled services, especially medical and social assistance, as well as professional and commercial services are the major sources of employment. Two Fed officials said that a slowdown in US employment growth indicates that the labor market is trending in balance.
![[Insights for Aug. 2023] Inflation is under control?! Can the US achieve a soft landing? -5](https://courseimg.futunn.com/2023081000006629bc10e04ad03.jpg?imageMogr2/quality/100/ignore-error/1)
For the market, the current positive data signal is more obvious, CME FedWatch Tool shows that as of August 7, the market believes the probability of a rate hike in SeptemberOnly 15.5%.
Therefore, as investors, we can continue to pay attention to the future trend of the above several indicators - because these indicators not only affect the US economy, but also affect the stock market rise and fall.
As for soft landing, according to CNBC,Some experts have given up on the “recession says” and shift their views to “turn landing may eventually come”. Michael Gabon, head of US economy at Bank of America, said: “We still believe that the most likely is a mild recession, which is 35% to 40%.” But Bankrate senior economic analyst Mark Hamrik also prompted the risk: “Historically, recession is often caused by black swan events, that is, unpredictable, unexpected and unpredictable situations.”
So let the “soft landing” bullet fly for a while!
Written at the end
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![[Insights for Aug. 2023] Inflation is under control?! Can the US achieve a soft landing? -6](https://courseimg.futunn.com/20230810000066287c772d74429.png?imageMogr2/quality/100/ignore-error/1)