PANews reported on April 7 that a top observer closely tracking the Federal Reserve's movements indicated that Fed Chair Powell quietly released signals of a hawkish turn last Friday, while most market participants remained unaware. Tim Duy, Chief U.S. Economist at SGH Macro Advisors, expressed this view as the federal funds futures market continued to heat up bets on a Fed rate cut. According to the CME FedWatch tool, the market's expected probability of a rate cut in May has surged from 14% last week to 60%, with expectations that rates will fall to 3% by the end of the year.

The 2-year U.S. Treasury yield, most sensitive to monetary policy, fell by 8 basis points to 3.59%. Duy pointed out: "We expected Powell to lean hawkish last Friday, but he went further amid the stock market crash, and the market may have overlooked key signals—this is frightening." Powell introduced new wording in his inflation expectations statement, emphasizing for the first time that long-term inflation expectations (not just one-year) are beginning to be concerning. More critically, there was a subtle change in forward guidance: he removed two sentences from the March 7 statement that were used to rule out the possibility of rate hikes—"If the economy remains strong but inflation does not sustainably fall back to 2%, we will extend the period of policy restriction; if the labor market unexpectedly weakens or inflation falls below expectations, we will accordingly loosen policy." Duy analyzed: "Although rate hikes were not explicitly mentioned, the option for rate hikes is no longer explicitly ruled out. Powell was clearly aware that the market is in free fall when adjusting his wording, and this is not dullness, but rather intentional."