Last night, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates by 25 basis points as expected, bringing the rate down to 3.5-3.75. An invisible balance sheet expansion was also launched simultaneously, and these two market movements were actually priced in earlier. Powell's post-meeting speech is the focus of liquidity in December. After listening to his speech, to summarize simply: the short term is very cautious, while the long term is very optimistic.
Why is the short term cautious? Jerome Powell said that the government-reported addition of 40,000 jobs may actually need to be revised down to 60,000, meaning there will be a net reduction of another 20,000. In this situation, not lowering interest rates is not feasible; it is to prevent a passive interest rate cut due to an economic crash.
Why not provide the upcoming interest rate cut path? Because inflation is bound to rise, inflation is not caused by increased demand; it is pushed up passively by tariffs, and even raising interest rates might not solve it. This is why there is intense internal debate, with three votes against being the most in six years.
What are the Federal Reserve's expectations? Powell hinted that the current interest rates are already close to neutral, meaning that: further cuts would be stimulative, while not cutting would be neutral. It is highly likely that there will be no cuts in January, but they will not do nothing. The Federal Reserve has decided to initiate the purchase of short-term government bonds, and Powell mentioned maintaining the scale of reserves, which is a signal of liquidity improvement, so the Dow rose by more than 1% last night.
The key point is, why is he instead very optimistic about the long term? The Federal Reserve summary shows that this year's actual GDP growth rate is expected to be 1.7, and next year it is 2.3, with employment declining, but next year is more optimistic than this year. Doesn't that sound particularly contradictory? Therefore, after the meeting, a reporter asked the key question: Are we experiencing a positive productivity shock brought by AI?
Powell's response is that artificial intelligence may enhance productivity on one hand, but on the other hand, it will also impact society and the labor market. In the eyes of the Federal Reserve, the future picture brought by the AI boom can be summarized in the following two points:
· First, AI technology significantly improves productivity, allowing companies to produce more goods and services without hiring more people or even laying off employees. This is why employment is poor, but GDP forecasts are rising.
· The second point is that current AI spending supports corporate investment for economic growth. It provides strong momentum. In the future, as efficiency improves and costs decrease, the U.S. can achieve high growth with low inflation expectations. This is also why Powell dares to announce that interest rates are close to neutral now.
So in his speech, we need to see two trends.
· The first point is structural differentiation; the trend is that the stock market will continue to believe in AI stocks, but the actual pressure on the labor market will become increasingly severe, leading to a rigid economy.
· The second point is to pay attention to the invisible expansion of liquidity, which provides a short-term surge in liquidity, but this is not sustained easing. The turning point of future policy will be the revised employment data to be released in January next year.
So from his speech, it can be heard that the current U.S. stock market is neutral, and the possibility of sharp rises or falls is very small; it is currently very stable.#美联储降息 #ETH走势分析 $ETH
