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Stagflation Is a Real Possibility to These Analysts

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A drumbeat for stagflation as a possible scenario for the US economy is growing louder.

Last week, strategists from the Bank of America wrote that the macroeconomic picture is “flipping from goldilocks to stagflation,” which they defined as growth below 2% and inflation of between 3% and 4%. Inflation is higher in developed and emerging markets, while the US labor market is “finally cracking,” wrote Michael Hartnett.

JPMorgan Chase’s Marko Kolanovic raised similar concerns in February. A halt in inflation’s downward trend, or price pressures broadly resurfacing “wouldn’t be a surprise” given outsized gains in equities, tight labor markets and high immigration and government spending, he said, according to Bloomberg.

Between 1967 to 1980, stock returns were nearly flat in nominal terms as inflation came in waves, with fixed-income investments significantly outperforming while stock returns were nearly flat in nominal terms. Kolanovic sees “many similarities to the current times.”

“We already had one wave of inflation, and questions started to appear whether a second wave can be avoided if policies and geopolitical developments stay on this course,” he said in his note, adding that inflation is likely to be harder to control as stock and cryptocurrency markets add trillions of dollars in paper wealth and quantitative tightening is offset by Treasury issuance.

Recent economic reports back up these analysts: The February Consumer Price Index came in at a higher-than-expected 3.2% year over year. Retail sales reported on Friday rose 0.6% from January to February, falling short of projections expecting 0.8% growth.

The Wall Street Journal highlighted these developments but ultimately dismissed the idea of stagflation taking hold in the US economy. So have the equity markets,

Barclays Plc strategist Emmanuel Cau wrote in a note that was reported in Bloomberg.

“With the Fed so far endorsing current market pricing of three cuts starting in June, investors continue to see the glass half full on the soft landing narrative,” he said.

This week the Federal Open Market Committee will meet and the minutes it releases will show how Fed officials’ thinking changed from recent bad data on inflation.

One sign doesn’t bode well for Fed watchers hoping for rate cuts to happen sooner than later.

More than two-thirds of academic economists polled by the Financial Times believe that the Federal Reserve will be forced to hold interest rates at a high level for longer than markets and central bankers anticipate. Respondents to the FT-Chicago Booth poll think the Fed will make two or fewer cuts this year with the most popular response for the timing of the first cut split between July and September.

“The Fed really wants to cut rates. All of the body language is about cutting. But the data is going to make it harder for them to do it,” Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University, who was one of 38 respondents polled this month, told the FT. “I expect the last mile of inflation to prove quite stubborn.”

However, there is one viable theory for rates in June. Vincent Reinhart, a former Fed official who is now chief economist at Dreyfus and Mellon, told the FT that politics will play a role in the timing this year.

“The data say the best time to cut rates is September, but the politics say June,” said Reinhart, who did not participate in the poll. “You don’t want to start cuts that close to an election.”

 

Source:  GlobeSt.

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Powell: ‘There Will Be Bank Failures’ Caused By Commercial Real Estate Losses

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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday he expects to see some banks fail due to their exposure to the commercial real estate sector, which has declined significantly in value following the shift to remote work.

Powell said the banks that are in trouble with falling office space and retail assets are not the big banks, which were designated as “systemically important” in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. That episode, which resulted in a taxpayer bailout of the financial sector, was also triggered by unsound real estate assets.

Rather, the banks at risk of failure now Powell identified as smaller and medium-sized.

“This is a problem we’ll be working on for years more, I’m sure. There will be bank failures,” he said during a Thursday hearing on the Fed’s monetary policy in the Senate Banking Committee.

“It’s not a first-order issue for any of the very large banks. It’s more smaller and medium-sized banks that have these issues. We’re working with them. We’re getting through it. I think it’s manageable, is the word I would use,” he said.

Powell didn’t go into detail about the specific regulatory actions regarding commercial real estate exposure that are now being undertaken by the Fed, which is both the federal currency issuer and one of the primary bank supervising agencies, though he did say he had identified the banks most at risk.

“We are in dialogue with them: Do you have your arms around this problem? Do you have enough capital? Do you have enough liquidity? Do you have a plan? You’re going to take losses here — are you being truthful with yourself and with your owners?” he said.

Commercial real estate investment trusts, known as REITs, have taken a hit over the past few months. Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Boston Properties, Kilroy Realty Corp., and Vornado Realty trust are all in negative territory since the beginning of the year.

Powell described the decline in value of commercial real estate as a result of remote work following the economic shutdowns of the pandemic as a “secular change” in the economy.

“In many cities, the downtown office district is very underpopulated. There are empty buildings in many major and minor cities. It also means that all the retail that was there to serve those thousands and thousands of people who work in those buildings, they’re under pressure, too,” he said. 

While the decline of commercial real estate values could put some banks out of business, Powell expressed confidence that the Fed and financial regulators would be able to contain the fallout and prevent a broader crisis. Thirty-four U.S. banks have failed since 2015, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), which insures deposits at regulated banks.

 

Source:  The Hill

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The Banks Are Not Okay

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“Bad” doesn’t adequately express the last few days for New York Community Bancorp.

As the close of Thursday, shares were down 44.6% after the bank revealed a 2023 Q4 loss of $252 million rather than the Q3 $207 million gain. Markets remembered that there are still significant concerns about commercial real estate and its loans.

New York Community had acquired much of the deposits and loan assets from failed Signature Bank, and it added a $552 million provision for future credit losses, plus $185 million in net charge-offs, plus cut dividends by 70% to bolster capital.

Despite repeated assurances from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury department that banks are fundamentally sound, real-time results for banks have become reminders to markets that all is apparently not well.

The problems facing New York Community were more than Signature. A New York co-op loan that wasn’t in default nevertheless is now up from sale because of “a unique feature that pre-funded capital expenditures.” There was also an “additional charge-off on an office loan that went non-accrual during the third quarter, based on an updated valuation.”

Even worse, all this was unanticipated by investors because the bank had not prepared markets for the bad news.

From a market view, compounding all this was that the acquisitions from Signature and 2022’s acquisition of Flagstar Bancorp boosted New York Community’s total assets to more than $100 billion. That put the institution, as it noted, “firmly in the Category IV large bank class of banks between $100 billion and $250 billion in assets and subjecting us to enhanced prudential standards, including risk-based and leverage capital requirements, liquidity standards, requirements for overall risk management and stress testing.”

Moody’s placed the bank on review for a downgrade

But there was compounding news from elsewhere in the world, as the Wall Street Journal reminded. Azora Bank of Japan saw shares drop 20%, “the maximum allowed on a single day under stock-market rules, after it said losses in its U.S. office-loan portfolio will likely lead to a net loss for the year ending in March.” The annual loss will be the first in 15 years and its president will step down April 1. And then, Deutsche Bank “increased loss provisions in its U.S. commercial loan book nearly fivefold from 2022’s fourth quarter to 123 million euros, equivalent to $133 million.”

Concerns about conditions in CRE might push banks into restricting lending even more, which would reduce available financing and make the industry more dependent on alternative funding sources, like private equity, with significant higher financing costs than commercial banks.

Or as Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson put it to Bloomberg: “It’s not a systemic issue. It’s a weight on credit growth [and] the companies that are reliant on that kind of funding are going to see that’s a paperweight for them.”

 

Source:  GlobeSt.

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Money Markets Expect Rates To Stay High For Years

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Listening to discussions about what will happen with interest rates in 2024 is like walking into an open house at The Oxford Union of the namesake university. Debates to the right and left with the audience voting on the most compelling argument.

One of the loudest collective voices in the rate debate are the money markets, and they’re nowhere near as optimistic as those cheering a soft landing of the country’s economic airplane, according to Reuters. Financial markets are expecting interest rates to remain high for an extended period of time — 3% for years — with inflation still higher than the Fed wants and government spending driving new heights of public debt.

The former means the Fed could limit cuts and the latter will mean more U.S. borrowing at higher yields to attract buyers. The yields, especially for the 10-year, create an attractive place for investors to put money with relative safety, boosting the rates other outlets must get to provide risk-adjusted returns and compete as investment opportunities. In other words, don’t expect the decade of near-zero rates to return.

“Traders have in recent weeks doubled down on bets for steep rate cuts next year, encouraged by slowing inflation and a dovish shift from the U.S. Federal Reserve,” Reuters wrote. “Expectations that rates will drop at least 1.5 percentage points in the United States and Europe have boosted bond and equity markets.”

The Federal Reserve’s most recent collection of economic expectations show the projected federal funds rate range to be 4.4% to 4.9% this year, 3.1% to 3.9% next year, 2.5% to 3.1% in 2026, and 2.5% to 3.0% in the longer run.

The warnings aren’t coming only from money markets. There have been polar takes on the edge.

As Stephen Stanley, chief US economist at Santander, told the Financial Times, “You couldn’t draw up a more perfect economic scenario than the FOMC’s forecasts. If it happens, that would be tremendous. But there are only downside risks.”

As Jeffrey Gundlach — founder, CEO, and chief investment officer of Doubleline, and money management firm that is a big player in the bond market — told CNBC in an interview that when the yield level of the 10-year Treasury market goes below 4%, it sounds “almost like a fire alarm.” And the 10-year has been hovering under 4% since mid-December. If Gundlach is right and lower 10-year yields are portents of a recession next year, the Feds might raise interest rates as a way to drive down price hikes.

In other words, near-zero interest rates may be long out of play no matter how you look at current conditions.

 

Source:  GlobeSt.

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The Nightmare Scenario for CRE Bank Loans

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A lot of discussion in business and economic circles is around whether 2024 will bring a soft landing or some degree of recession. The optimists have been out in force for some time and are expecting a Federal Reserve rate cut as soon as the first quarter of next year.

But there are still those who think a recession could happen and that victory is far from clear. If that proves to be true, Yale School of Management’s Professor of Finance and Management Andrew Metrick says to prepare for some serious trouble for commercial real estate and the banks that hold the loans.

“Historically, for every one percentage point increase in the policy rate from the Fed, banks take 1% hits to their capital over the next eight quarters,” Metrick said in an interview with Yale Insights. From the zero-interest rate to the current baseline federal funds rate range of 5.25% to 5.50% has been a large and rapid leap. “If banks lose 5% of their capital, there are going to be a lot of banks in trouble.”

“If we manage to avoid a recession and get a soft landing, the banks will recover,” Metrick says. “Past commercial real estate downturns have been slow moving things,” he explained. “We spent 10 years after the global financial crisis working out a whole lot of problems.”

At issue is the deep intertwining of banks and commercial real estate. As Metrick notes, the banking system holds about $3 trillion in CRE loans on their book sheets, $2 trillion of which is held outside the largest 25 financial institutions. To date, the loans have performed because their interest rates have been low. Refinancing is drastically changing that.

If a soft landing skips and slides into a recession, the processing of CRE loans would kick into high gear because banks don’t typically sell them on as they do with residential mortgages. Under a 2016 change in accounting standards called Current Expected Capital Losses (CECL), “banks are supposed to take seriously what they think the probability is of something paying off in the future, even if it’s current,” Metrick says.

His “nightmare scenario” starts with banks as yet having to provision adequately for potential losses. In a recession, banks are even more reluctant to lend into commercial real estate than they have been. Many loans don’t get refinanced, and some bank somewhere becomes the “Silicon Valley Bank of commercial real estate” that suddenly fails. Congress investigates and finds that the bank not only failed to have reserved enough, but also didn’t warn shareholders.

“That next quarter, every accountant in the world is going to tell their banks, ‘I’m not going to be the one blamed if you fail.’ They’re going to get very tough on CECL, and what looked like a slow-moving downturn suddenly crystallizes as an expected value disaster that everybody has to put in their balance sheets at the same time,” Metrick says.

Many banks, maybe hundreds, now become insolvent, creating a wave of closures not seen since the very worst of the Global Financial Crisis.

“Not to leave you super scared, but you should be a little scared because I’m a little scared,” he says.

 

Source:  GlobeSt.

 

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CRE Transactions Expected to Fall 5% Next Year Amid Rising Treasury Yields

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To understand where interest rates might go, watching the actions of the Federal Reserve is important, of course, but so is monitoring yields of Treasury instruments. Whether bonds, notes, or bills, depending on the term, they have great sway.

Treasurys are considered safe investments, and so are one of those practical baselines for calculating risk adjusted returns. As the yields rise, so do interest rates.

But as is true with anything, trying to track every movement can become confusing.

For example, CBRE noted on Thursday, November 3 that the “recent bond market sell off has lifted the 10-year Treasury yield to nearly 5% and further dampened investor sentiment for commercial real estate.”

 

“Rather than inflation, a mix of short- and medium-term economic and political pressures is driving up bond yields,” they continued. “These include a stronger-than-expected economy with robust consumer spending, increasing term premiums, the surging government deficit and reductions in the Fed’s balance sheet (quantitative tightening).”

Based on such data and their analysis, CBRE said that it lowered growth expectations for CRE investment rate volumes in 2024. The projection had been +15%; now they are -5%.

“Our econometric models indicate that the rise in the 10-year Treasury yield to 5% or more, if sustained, will raise cap rates and lower capital values for commercial real estate,” they wrote.

And if they were correct that the 10-year would continue a strong upward pace, maybe the impact of higher interest rates would have such an impact. They might even be correct.

But this is where following short-term data flows can drive people to potentially make mistakes.

On Wednesday November 1, the 10-year dropped from the previous day’s 4.88% yield to 4.77%. Then on Thursday, it hit to 4.67%, and Friday closed out at 4.57%. Similarly, the 2-year yield went from 5.07% on Tuesday to 4.83% on Friday.

Econometric models can be wrong. Then again, they could be correct, look further out, and maybe yields will rebound in the long run.

But then, CBRE wrote that other than office, the “relative health” of CRE property types “makes forward internal rates of return (IRRs) increasingly attractive.”

“If the economy manages a soft landing and long-term bond rates ease, investment activity may surprise on the upside,” they wrote.

This is why solid hedging strategies make a great deal of sense.

 

Source:  GlobeSt.

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A Sale-Leaseback Conundrum: Elevated Valuations Could Mean Later Problems

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The Federal Reserve’s October 2023 Financial Stability Report was not the sort of reading for CRE professionals to quell their fevered concerns about the industry’s immediate future.

As the Fed wrote, “Valuation pressures arise when asset prices are high relative to economic fundamentals or historical norms.” An apt description for commercial real estate. And elevated valuation pressures can “increase the possibility of outsized drops in asset prices.”

The implications might apply to any CRE property, but on reflection, sale-leaseback transactions seem like they might be particularly prone to adverse effects under the current conditions. The problem that appears for both buyer and seller is the potential longevity of the arrangement. Getting caught by an erroneous valuation is bad enough in the short term. Over a longer period, the effect can be magnified, with more to regret over an arrangement that will run years and possibly decades.

Under a sale-leaseback, the initial owner of a property is also the occupant. That owner decides to sell the property to an investor that will become the new owner and landlord.

The initial owner wants to use the property, often over a long period of time because that party prefers to keep control for years at least or perhaps decades. So, as part of the deal, that party agrees to remain a tenant, often on a net lease basis.

It’s a common type of arrangement. The first owner wants the sale to free capital locked in the building that might be put to better use, like R&D, acquiring another business, or expanding into a new sales territory.

In normal times, understanding the true value of the property is fairly straightforward. But currently, that isn’t possible because there is a lack of price discovery. If, as the Fed suggests, properties are overvalued, then the seller might seem to get a premium, assuming that an experienced buyer won’t recognize the danger, which a bit of a stretch.

However, say the transaction happens on that valuation. The buyer will need rents going forward that justified the price it paid, and they would need to be higher than true market rents. Overly high valuation likely means higher taxes that are paid by the seller. It could be that taxes would eventually come down, but it would require the local government to reassess the property.

This doesn’t mean that a sale-leaseback with net lease can’t make sense, but it might require more thought and negotiation for changing conditions.

 

Source:  GlobeSt.

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The Fed Says CRE Valuations Are Still Elevated

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The Federal Reserve’s October 2023 Financial Stability Report reads like a slightly early major Halloween trick for commercial real estate — no treat in the pages. Overly high asset valuations, even after all that’s happened so far, and ongoing high interest rates are flashing warning signs for the central bank.

One aspect is of particular concern to CRE professionals.

First, the overall view, based on a periodic survey the Federal Reserve Bank of New York conducts, the most recent having taken place from August 10 to October 4. Here is the top line:

“The two most frequently cited topics in this survey — the risk of persistent inflationary pressures leading to a more restrictive monetary policy stance and the potential for large losses on commercial real estate and residential real estate — were mentioned by three-fourths of all survey participants, up from one-half of all participants in the previous survey.”

The grim views are all focused on real estate, whether commercial or residential. For a bit of moderation, the survey was of 25 people, “including professionals at broker-dealers, investment funds, research and advisory fi rms, and academics,” the Fed wrote.

Far from a representative sample, but given the expertise, concerning. About 70% of the experts pointed to commercial and residential real estate as among the biggest risks over the next 12 to 18 months. The only other factors gaining that type of attention were a pairing of persistent inflation and monetary tightening. Auspicious company.

The big problem for CRE is valuation. As the Fed wrote, “Valuation pressures arise when asset prices are high relative to economic fundamentals or historical norms.” An apt description for commercial real estate. And elevated valuation pressures can “increase the possibility of outsized drops in asset prices.”

What is an apparent puzzlement in the Fed’s report is that even as prices have continued to decline, real estate valuations have remained elevated.

“Aggregate CRE prices measured in inflation-adjusted terms continued declining through August,” the report said. “Capitalization rates at the time of property purchase, which measure the annual income of commercial properties relative to their prices, have increased modestly from recent historically low levels but have not increased as much as real Treasury yields, suggesting that prices remain high relative to rental income.”

Office sector prices are particularly elevated, “where fundamentals are especially weak for offices in central business districts, with vacancy rates increasing further and rent growth declining since the May report.” But that doesn’t leave other sectors free and clear.

Some part, maybe significant, of this may be the ongoing lack of price discovery. With transactions down and many sellers holding off, waiting for improved pricing, while a lot of buyers look for bargains in distress, it’s hard to tell how much properties should be worth. CRE has the possibility of seeing significant additional drops in valuation, which would then cause even more problems with refinancing.

 

Source:  GlobeSt.

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Commercial Real Estate’s Troubles Offer Opportunities For Investors

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It’s no secret that the commercial real estate industry is struggling.

The Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates to their highest levels since 2007. The collapse of First Republic Bank last week represented the second-largest commercial bank failure in American history.

But, through all the tumult, there may be opportunities for investors looking to take advantage of the distress, panelists said at Commercial Observer’s State of Commercial Real Estate forum, hosted in partnership with L&L Holding Company.

JPMorgan Chase’s decision to buy First Republic, at the behest of federal regulators, certainly weighed on the minds of the public and private sector experts gathered at 222 Broadwaythe morning of May 2. But not so for Andrew Farkas, CEO of Island Capital Group.

“Now that you’re all distressed investors, this is good,” Farkas said during a fireside chat. “Don’t be afraid of defaulting loans. Don’t be afraid of down markets.”

While “a recession is never really good for anything,” Farkas said that tough markets like today’s are when “fortunes are made,” because investors can buy on the cheap. A slowdown in the debt markets also could encourage sellers to provide financing for acquisitions themselves, he added.

Still, the turbulence in the banking sector is another concern in a long list of problems facing New York City’s office market. A “wave of defaults” looms for office property debt, Richard Barkham, CBRE’s global chief economist, said in the opening panel, titled “2023 Economic Outlook: Analyzing Key Stats & Data.”

Office property values have dropped roughly 30 percent since the pre-pandemic peak of the market, and those buildings are unlikely to recover all of their value in the next five years, Barkham added.

But not every office building is in trouble. High-end, trophy properties are still seeing strong attendance, Jamil Lacourt, director of construction at L&L Holding, said in the “Office 2023: Where Occupier Innovations & Workplace Demand Meet” panel. Buildings that offer tenants data on their carbon footprint are more attractive to firms that are required to track their sustainability commitments, said Linda Foggie, CitiGroup’s global head of real estate operations.

Landlords can also use data to measure how tenants use amenities and what types of benefits keep renters coming back to their buildings, said Chase Garbarino, founder of workplace experience software company HqO. Panelists were joined by Colliers’ Michael Cohen and the Rockefeller Group’s Bill Edwards.

“The market environment today is creating a really good opportunity for the larger commercial real estate market to be more data-driven,” Garbarino said. “Commercial real estate does a better job than any industry in assessing the financial viability of their customers. And they probably have the least understanding of how people use their product.”

Buildings that can’t survive as offices could be converted into housing, if the property is the right size, zoned properly and empty of tenants, said Michael Pestronk, co-founder of real estate development firm Post Brothers.

“You need a lot of stars to be aligned in order to convert an office building,” said Shimon Shkury, president and founder of Ariel Property Advisors, in the “Investment Sales, Conversions & The Rise of the Rental Market” panel. “The city and state, if possible, have to think about subsidies and help people that want to come here and convert office buildings.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed a tax incentive to turn office space into housing in her initial budget in February, though most of the governor’s housing agenda was cut during budget negotiations. But Melissa Román Burch, CEO of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, said legislation to support conversions could be passed before the legislative session ends in June.

Not all commercial real estate properties need a complete redesign. Multifamily properties remain a strong asset class as rising rents outpace the impact of higher interest rates on owners’ bottom lines. (Farkas said he was “all-in” on single-family rentals. “Single-family home rental has been unbelievable,” Farkas said. “And 10 years ago, I told everybody they were going to lose their ask. Wrong!”)

Life sciences space and data centers are also still in demand, particularly thanks to the exponential growth in the amount of data collected by companies that utilize artificial intelligence technology, Rob Harper, head of real estate asset management in the Americas at Blackstone (BX), said in the panel “A Deep Dive Into the State of CRE Market: Paving the Road to Stabilization.”

Last, it was on to retail.

Retail leasing activity has started to trend up slightly, said Fred Posniak, senior vice president of leasing at Empire State Realty Trust. That could be because the retailers that survived the pandemic represent a stronger crop of businesses, Andrew Mandell, vice chairman at Ripco Real Estate, said in the “What’s Next for Retail: The Innovative Strategies Driving the Retail Revival” panel.

Still, retail is far from immune to inflation and the higher cost of debt, which can make it more difficult for retailers to raise funds to expand to new locations, Posniak said.

 

Source:  Commercial Observer

 

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Powell’s Congressional Testimony Likely Means More Rate Hikes

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As they say, if you don’t want the answer, don’t ask the question. But Congress did insist that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell talk about the economy and the Fed’s take this morning. His testimony is probably not what most people want to hear, but certainly what businesspeople, especially in CRE, need to.

If, like an economic Dylan Thomas, you were concerned that the Fed’s policies might go gentle into that good night, don’t worry, they aren’t.

In the testimony, Powell quickly invoked the Fed’s dual mandate of promoting maximum employment and stable prices. Notice, there is no direct mention of easing business costs or supporting asset prices. Those are supposed to come as byproducts — boost business to indirectly promote employment and slow it to moderate prices.

“We have covered a lot of ground, and the full effects of our tightening so far are yet to be felt,” Powell said, for those who want a pause to assess progress. “Even so, we have more work to do. Our policy actions are guided by our dual mandate to promote maximum employment and stable prices. Without price stability, the economy does not work for anyone. In particular, without price stability, we will not achieve a sustained period of labor market conditions that benefit all.”

 

Or, as Oxford Economics translated in an emailed note: “Fed Chair Jerome Powell used his semi-annual testimony to push back against financial markets as his comments were hawkish, noting that the terminal rate for the fed funds rate could be higher than previously anticipated. He noted that he isn’t hesitant to increase the pace of rate hikes if the data on employment and inflation continue to come in stronger than anticipated.”

Although inflation had seemed to be slowing, January was a jarring reminder that inexorable progress toward goals is unusual. Jobs, consumer spending, manufacturing numbers, and inflation “reversed the softening trends that we had seen in the data just a month ago.”

It was the “breadth of the reversal” that meant inflation was running hotter than during the last meeting of the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee. And even then, the underlying message was not to expect immediate lower interest rates.

Inflation “remains well above the FOMC’s longer-run objective of 2 percent,” and Powell was talking not just the overall number, in which housing costs were a major driver. He specifically mentioned core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation without the volatility of food and energy that push upwards, and core services without housing, which discounts that outlier.

“Although nominal wage gains have slowed somewhat in recent months, they remain above what is consistent with 2 percent inflation and current trends in productivity,” said Powell. “Strong wage growth is good for workers but only if it is not eroded by inflation.”

 

Then he got to interest rates. “We continue to anticipate that ongoing increases in the target range for the federal funds rate will be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2 percent over time. In addition, we are continuing the process of significantly reducing the size of our balance sheet.”

So, continuation of maybe 25-basis point increases and also continued scaling down of the balance sheet, which means reducing purchases of bonds that help fuel home mortgages and, so, that entire part of the construction and sales ecosystem.

However, the maybe is not to be ignored.

“While a quarter-point increase in the Federal Funds rate is still the most likely outcome of the Federal Reserve’s March meeting, expect the Fed to adopt a half-point increase in March if data on inflation and labor conditions continue to run hotter than expected,” said Marty Green, a principal with mortgage law firm, Polunsky Beitel Green, in an emailed note.

 

Source:  GlobeSt.

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