Market Insight for the Week Ending 10 February

In line with expectations, three significant central banks raised their benchmark interest rates as January rolled into February: the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised the Fed Funds rate by 25 basis points, and the Bank of England (BoE) and the European Central Bank (ECB) each increased their rates by 50 basis points.

The job is not finished, according to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, despite the fact that the Fed is clearly slowing the pace of policy tightening (the most recent rate hike marks the smallest increase since March 2022) and inflation has reached a peak after easing for a sixth consecutive month in December to 6.5%.

Powell sought to reiterate caution at his press conference on Wednesday, but it seemed like the markets mostly disregarded his words. Powell said that there may be "a few" more rate increases on the table, that inflation is still too high (remember that it is still three times the central bank's 2% objective), that the labor market is tight, and that the economy is slowing down. Even when policymakers issued warnings about additional rate increases, equities and bonds performed well. The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield decreased 9 basis points (-2.6%) as the S&P 500 rose 1.1%.

The market response suggests that the central bank is becoming more dovish, but Friday's employment report puts a wrench in the works. Non-farm payrolls rose by 517,000 in January, well above the consensus estimate of 185,000 and indicating a significant improvement in the labor market. Contrary to forecasts, the unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 3.4%; nonetheless, wage growth is showing indications of stalling at 0.3% month over month.