The US Federal Reserve took a pause from hiking interest rates when it left benchmark rates unchanged overnight. This was the first time in 15 months that the world's largest central bank did not hike rates in order to bring inflation down to its 2 percent target range.
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However, some on the street were spooked by the hawkish commentary from Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The Fed dot plot is projecting two more rate hikes by the end of the year. The dot plot is an individual Fed member's projection of where the interest rates will end up by a given point of time.
Benchmark indices in the US like the Dow Jones fell as much as 400 points after this projection. However, the index recovered to end 230 points lower. In fact, both S&P 500 and the Nasdaq recovered all their losses and even ended the session with gains.
Experts on the street believe that hiking interest rates two more times may be an "unnecessary move" on the part of the US Federal Reserve, and that they would have opted for a more dovish stance from here on.
"I am not convinced that they're going to be doing two more rate hikes. I think, between now and the next meeting in late July, a lot can happen," Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research told CNBC-TV18 in an interaction. "And I think we're going to continue to see moderation in the inflation rate, moderation in the labor market. So I don't really know that more rate hiking is actually necessary," Yardeni added further.
Eric Fishwick of CLSA also raised his terminal foreacst for 2023 to 5.5 percent, which implies that he anticipates one more rate hike from the central bank. "The Fed left rates unchanged at 5.25 percent but raised its guidance for encompassing 5.75% rates by end-2023. We raise our terminal forecast to 5.5 percent, but expect the last move to 5.75 percent will be unnecessary," he said.
Experts are questioning the Federal Reserve's stance as the CPI inflation in the US fell to 4 percent in May, the lowest level in two years, although still above the Fed's target rate of 2 percent. 91 percent of the market participants were expecting the Fed to hold rates for as long as November this year.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell did not validate why the Federal Reserve took a pause in the June meeting, according to Aditya Bhave of Bank of America Securities. However, he is of the opinion that one of the two rate hikes will come in July, while the other will come in October or November. Bhave further said that it does not look like another 50 basis points rate hike will be a breaking point for the economy and that he sees only a mild recession in 2024.
On the other hand, Citi's Robert Sockin said that they had already projected for two more rate hikes in this cycle. Sockin also does not see the US going into a sharp economic slowdown anytime soon. He further added that the US Fed has taken a pause to buy some time before the next rate hike. Similar to Bhave's view, Sockin does not see a hard landing for the US either but just expects a mild recession.