Top economist Mohamed El-Erian says traders are too aggressive on Fed rate cut expectations
Traders are overplaying the prospects of an aggressive series of Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts before the end of the year, according to Mohamed El-Erian.
“It is problematic in my mind that the market is pricing in so many rate cuts right now,” El-Erian, the president of Queens’ College, Cambridge, told Bloomberg Television on Thursday. “The market is overdoing it.”
Treasuries slipped Thursday following Wednesday’s gains after the release of the Fed minutes and revisions to US jobs data. A Bloomberg gauge of Treasuries is up some 1.8% so far in August.
In recent days. traders have cemented bets in the swaps market that Fed policymakers will ease policy by as much as one percentage point by year-end, starting in September with the likelihood of a 25- or even 50-basis-point cut. Minutes from the central bank’s July meeting signaled several officials saw a case for lowering borrowing costs next month, and the latest jobs data — revealing employment growth was far less robust than previously reported — reinforces that the cuts are all but assured.
According to El-Erian, the Fed will more realistically ease borrowing costs by 75 basis points by the end of the year.
“There’s this notion of a hard landing policy response to achieve a soft landing, that has got to be reconciled one way or another,” said El-Erian, who is also a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. “The market’s going to have to adjust at some point.”
Traders will be looking for clues on the scope of Fed easing as the central bank’s annual symposium taking place in Jackson Hole, Wyoming kicks off Thursday. Chair Jerome Powell will discuss the economic outlook on Friday.
