Monex: Groei Amerikaanse economie Q4 2018 beter dan verwacht - heeft de Fed te snel een U-bocht genomen?

Monex: Groei Amerikaanse economie Q4 2018 beter dan verwacht - heeft de Fed te snel een U-bocht genomen?

February 28, 2019

United States
Bart Hordijk - Monex Europe.jpg

Hieronder volgt een commentaar in het Engels van Bart Hordijk, valuta-analist bij Monex Europe, op de groeicijfers van de Amerikaanse economie in het vierde kwartaal van 2018.

Headwinds may be forming for the US economy, but for now, it continues to power along as it outstrips expectations with an annualized growth of 2.6% for the closing quarter of 2018.

The question is: “ when will the US economy start to slow down?”. Arguably, it has to with a tight labour market, rising interest rates, value chain-distorting trade war, a strong dollar and the fading effects of the Trump 2018 tax cut stimulus. The Q4 answer, however, is a roaring “not now”. Nevertheless, this doesn’t guarantee that Q1 data will be equally good of course as the aforementioned factors together with the government shutdown may weigh on growth.

Still, the strong Q4 performance implies that if Q1 economic growth will outperform as well, the economy will continue to tighten and produce inflation. This will be the litmus test for the astuteness of the dovish U-turn the Federal Reserve took at its latest meeting at the end of January. The risks are increasing for the Fed, which may have made the dovish switch too early.

For now, this points to upwards risks for the dollar, as market pricing for further rate hikes is very cautious at less than one interest rate hike in 2019. To further illustrate this point, markets barely reacted to yesterday’s comments by Fed Chair Jerome Powell the Fed is getting closer to reaching the point of ending their balance sheet reduction this year. The market’s insensitivity to such signals suggests it may be caught off guard when the economy continues to produce inflation, which will force the Fed to adopt more hawkish policies than are previously anticipated by investors.

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