Stocks, bonds, dollar waver in countdown to Fed
BNN Bloomberg
Stocks, Treasuries and the dollar struggled to find direction before the long-awaited Federal Reserve decision.
Stocks, Treasuries and the dollar struggled to find direction before the long-awaited Federal Reserve decision.
While officials have signaled rate hikes won’t be on the table until the bond-buying program ends, investors are projecting more than two quarter-point increases by early 2023. For Win Thin, a strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman, the Fed may try to push back against aggressive tightening wagers, “but we are not sure that the market will listen.” Bannockburn Global’s Marc Chandler says that if the central bank wants “to ensure a hawkish signal, it would drop its characterization of inflation as transitory and/or accelerate the tapering to finish before mid-2022.”
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U.S. companies added the most jobs in four months, suggesting employers are making progress in filling a near-record number of open positions. The data precede Friday’s monthly employment report from the Labor Department, which is forecast to show that private payrolls increased by 408,000 in October. While the ADP figures don’t always follow the same pattern as the Labor Department’s data, the acceleration could point to a strong October report.
The Treasury announced the first reduction in its quarterly sale of longer-term debt in more than five years on Wednesday, reflecting diminishing borrowing needs as the wave of pandemic-relief spending ebbs.
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