会议概览与背景

Today is September 17th and this is my September FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee: 联邦公开市场委员会) debrief. 今天是9月17日，这是我对9月联邦公开市场委员会会议的简报。

I just finished watching Powell's presser and I thought it was a pretty good press conference and a pretty interesting meeting. 我刚看完鲍威尔（Jerome Powell）的记者会，我觉得那是一场相当不错的记者会，也是一次相当有趣的会议。

So we have a bunch of stuff to talk about. 所以我们有很多事情要谈。

However, as usual, let's first level set. 然而，像往常一样，我们先来设定一下基调。

Now between this meeting and the last meeting, we had a lot of stuff happen on the labor market front. 在本次会议和上次会议之间，劳动力市场方面发生了很多事情。

As we've been discussing, the labor market has been pretty disappointing. 正如我们一直在讨论的，劳动力市场一直相当令人失望。

A whole bunch of jobs that we thought we had were revised away and the most recent jobs report was pretty disappointing where jobs about 200,000 created lower than expectations. 我们原以为有的许多就业岗位被修正掉了，最近的就业报告也相当令人失望，新增就业岗位约20万个，低于预期。

However, the unemployment rate remains pretty low at around 4.3%. 然而，失业率仍然相当低，约为4.3%。

Now looking on the inflation side, things really haven't been improving either. 现在从通胀方面来看，情况也并没有好转。

Taking a step back, it really looks like inflation is stuck at about 3%. 退一步讲，通胀似乎真的停滞在3%左右。

And looking ahead, there doesn't seem to be a path for inflation to come down. 展望未来，通胀似乎没有下降的路径。

Actually, there's a good argument that inflation could actually tick up a little bit on account of tariffs. 实际上，有充分的论据表明，由于关税的影响，通胀可能会略微上升。

So, if you're the Fed looking for 2% inflation and full employment, you're kind of not doing very well on either mandate. 所以，如果美联储的目标是2%的通胀和充分就业，那么在任何一项任务上，表现都不是很理想。

So, you're in a pretty tough position. 因此，美联储正处于一个相当艰难的境地。

会议前的市场预期与疑问

Now, we all knew since Chair Powell telegraphed that at Jackson Hall that he would be cutting rates today. 我们都知道，自鲍威尔主席在杰克逊霍尔会议上发出信号以来，他今天会降息。

So the market had fully priced in a 25 basis point (基点: 金融领域衡量利率或收益率变动的单位，1个基点等于0.01%) cut. 因此，市场已完全消化了25个基点的降息。

Now heading into this meeting there were a few questions. 在这次会议之前，有一些问题。

First off on the political front we have the newly sworn-in and distinguished alum Steve Meyer joining as Governor Meyer as his first meeting. 首先在政治方面，我们有新宣誓就职的杰出校友史蒂夫·迈耶（Steve Meyer）作为理事加入，这是他第一次参加会议。

We also have Governor Cook who was fired by the president and reinstated by the court of appeals. 我们还有库克（Cook）理事，他曾被总统解雇，后又被上诉法院恢复职务。

So you had some interesting dynamics there. 所以那里有一些有趣的动态。

Wasn't sure if there would be a lot of dissents. 不确定是否会有很多异议。

Maybe some people wanted 50 basis points. 也许有些人想要降息50个基点。

Maybe some people didn't want to cut at all. 也许有些人根本不想降息。

So that was a question mark. 所以那是一个问号。

There's always of course on the margins some people hoping for a 50 basis point cut. 当然，总有一些边缘人士希望降息50个基点。

And of course for me the biggest question was how the Fed would project its dot plots (点阵图: 联邦公开市场委员会成员对未来利率预测的图表) in 2026 and 2027. 对我来说，最大的问题当然是美联储将如何在2026年和2027年预测其点阵图。

Now heading into this meeting like we discussed market fully priced in 25 basis point cut and also let's say 25 for each of the meetings throughout the end of this year. 正如我们讨论的，在这次会议之前，市场完全消化了降息25个基点，并且假设今年剩余的每次会议都降息25个基点。

However, the market also priced in a whole bunch of cuts for 2026 going as low as 2.9% in December 2026. 然而，市场也消化了2026年的一系列降息，到2026年12月利率甚至低至2.9%。

That is actually much lower than the June dot plot. 这实际上远低于6月份的点阵图预测。

And so there was kind of a big disconnect where the market was thinking and where the Fed had guided towards in June. 因此，市场预期与美联储6月份的指引之间存在很大的脱节。

And as I wrote about on Monday my perception was that the market would be forced to move a bit hawkishly (鹰派: 货币政策中倾向于加息或收紧政策的立场) to the Fed a little bit after today. 正如我周一所写，我的看法是，市场在今天之后将被迫稍微向美联储的鹰派立场靠拢。

So those were the questions heading into the meeting today. 所以这些是今天会议前的疑问。

会议结果与点阵图分析

Now at the meeting again immediately we got the 25 basis point cut as expected. 在会议上，我们再次立即得到了预期的25个基点降息。

No 50 basis point cut. 没有降息50个基点。

That was always very very unlikely. 那总是非常非常不可能的。

And we did get a dissent and that dissent of course comes from Governor Meyer who wanted 50 basis points. 我们确实收到了一份异议，这份异议当然来自迈耶理事，他希望降息50个基点。

No other dissent. 没有其他异议。

So it looks like the FOMC as a whole is still pretty cohesive on that front. 所以看起来联邦公开市场委员会作为一个整体，在这方面仍然相当团结。

Now more interesting thing is looking at the dot plot. 现在更有趣的是看点阵图。

Looking at the dot plot, the dot plot really didn't change that much between this meeting and the last meeting. 看看点阵图，这次会议和上次会议之间的点阵图变化并不大。

Looks like the Fed basically just penciled in an extra cut. 看起来美联储基本上只是额外增加了一次降息。

So, again, the dot plot is much more hawkish than was priced into the market. 因此，点阵图再次比市场预期的要鹰派得多。

And on the economic forecast front, looks like the Fed marked down their unemployment rate a little bit. 在经济预测方面，美联储似乎略微下调了他们的失业率预测。

So, a little bit better growth and marked up their inflation a little bit. 因此，增长略好，通胀预测略有上调。

So inflation a little bit worse. 所以通胀情况略微恶化。

So that's kind of how they're looking at it. 所以他们是这样看待的。

One very interesting thing is that when you break out the dot plot as to where the committee members stand with respect to rates at the end of 2025, you'll notice a whole bunch of them are clustered around say 4% or something like that. 一个非常有趣的事情是，当你分析点阵图，看看委员会成员对2025年底利率的看法时，你会发现很多人都集中在4%左右。

And there's this one dot that is very very low that is actually looking for 50 basis point cut in each of the last three meetings this year. 而且有一个点非常非常低，实际上是希望今年最后三次会议每次都降息50个基点。

And so I think we can all guess who that is. 所以我想我们都能猜到那是谁。

鲍威尔主席的降息理由

Going to Powell's press conference again, I think there were three things that really stood out to me. 再次回到鲍威尔的记者会，我认为有三件事给我留下了深刻印象。

First off, what's his rationale for cutting rates today? 首先，他今天降息的理由是什么？

So, Powell basically says that the labor market is not as strong as he thought it was. 鲍威尔基本上表示，劳动力市场不如他想象的那么强劲。

Over the past few meetings, Powell had repeatedly asserted that the labor market is doing really well. 在过去的几次会议中，鲍威尔曾反复强调劳动力市场表现非常好。

His focus was mostly on inflation. 他的重点主要放在通胀上。

Now he mentioned that looking at the revised data the labor market really doesn't look as good as he thought and so the risks are a bit more two-sided now. 现在他提到，根据修正后的数据，劳动力市场看起来确实不如他想象的那么好，因此现在的风险更趋于双向。

He can't really just all think that much on inflation and he also suggested that inflation is not as worrisome as he used to think. 他不能再把所有注意力都放在通胀上，他还暗示通胀不再像他以前认为的那样令人担忧。

So I take that to mean that inflation is probably going to be stuck at around 3%. 所以我认为这意味着通胀可能会停滞在3%左右。

It's probably not going to get worse to four or five 6%. 它可能不会恶化到4%、5%或6%。

Now during the pandemic it was super high. 在疫情期间，通胀非常高。

That was totally unacceptable. 那完全是不可接受的。

But my sense is that 3% inflation is actually okay to him. 但我的感觉是，对他来说，3%的通胀实际上是可以接受的。

对就业数据和移民的看法

The second thing that I thought was super interesting is how he perceived the upcoming job numbers. 我觉得第二件非常有趣的事情是，他如何看待即将发布的就业数据。

As we mentioned last month we only created 200,000 jobs and actually in June after revisions we actually had a negative job number. 正如我们上个月提到的，我们只创造了20万个就业岗位，实际上，6月份修正后我们甚至出现了负增长的就业数据。

So his perspective was that a lot of the weakness the perceived weakness in the labor market really is just due to immigration supply and demand dynamics over there. 所以他的观点是，劳动力市场中很多感知到的疲软实际上只是由于移民的供需动态。

So he thought that a break even job growth because of our reduced immigration is between 0 to 50,000. 因此他认为，由于移民减少，盈亏平衡的就业增长在0到5万之间。

So any number according to this perspective any number we get from the NFP report (Non-Farm Payrolls report: 非农就业报告) going forward if it's between zero and 50,000 it's probably okay because we should expect low job growth because we have lower population growth. 所以根据这种观点，未来我们从非农就业报告中获得的任何数据，如果介于0到5万之间，可能都是可以接受的，因为我们应该预期较低的就业增长，因为我们的人口增长率较低。

Now one Gberger who is a smart person who focuses on employment also suggested that they just look at the unemployment rate to derive what the break even number is. 现在，一位专注于就业的聪明人Gberger也提出，他们只是通过观察失业率来推断盈亏平衡的数字。

So the headline number is not super important but really what matters is the unemployment rate and I think that makes sense as well. 所以，头条数据并不是最重要的，真正重要的是失业率，我觉得这也说得通。

In any case, based on where the unemployment rate is today and based on the job growth numbers we've seen over the past few months, it seems that it's correct that the economy because of low population growth, these low job numbers actually don't seem to be super concerning. 无论如何，根据今天的失业率以及过去几个月我们看到的就业增长数据，似乎可以肯定的是，由于人口增长缓慢，这些较低的就业数据实际上看起来并不那么令人担忧。

Though of course, if you look at other things like wages and so forth, it does seem the labor market continues to weaken. 当然，如果你看工资等方面，劳动力市场似乎确实在继续走弱。

All right, so that means that actually a pretty hawkish perspective really. 好的，这意味着实际上是一个相当鹰派的观点。

It means that the Fed is not going to be super worried about the lower job growth numbers going forward. 这意味着美联储不会对未来较低的就业增长数据过于担忧。

关税对通胀的影响

And another thing that I thought was pretty interesting he mentioned was his perspective on tariffs. 他还提到了一个我认为非常有趣的事情，那就是他对关税的看法。

Now, we've been talking about tariffs for months and initially what I was telling you guys is that just looking at the past what happened 2017 2018 is that the distributors like the middlemen they ate the tariffs as profit through lower profits and they really weren't passed through the consumers and that's really what happened based on studies looking at hundreds of thousands of prices in 2018 and 2019 and Powell basically are saying right now that yeah that's what's happening right now all these distributors. 我们已经讨论关税好几个月了，最初我告诉大家的是，回顾2017年和2018年发生的事情，分销商，比如中间商，他们通过降低利润来消化关税，并没有真正将关税转嫁给消费者。这正是基于对2018年和2019年数十万种商品价格的研究所发生的情况。鲍威尔现在基本上也在说，是的，现在所有这些分销商也正在这样做。

They're eating the cost, eating the tariffs. 他们在承担成本，消化关税。

They plan on passing this on to consumers, but they're having trouble, too. 他们计划将此转嫁给消费者，但他们也遇到了麻烦。

So, he's saying that pass through could be very slow and very low. 所以，他说转嫁可能非常缓慢且非常低。

So, at the moment, there really doesn't seem to have been a very big impact from tariffs on inflation. 所以目前来看，关税对通胀似乎并没有产生非常大的影响。

That could come going forward but if the economy weakens and the FOMC is projecting below trend growth and I also am quite negative on the economy. 未来可能会出现影响，但如果经济走弱，而且联邦公开市场委员会预计增长将低于趋势水平，我自己也对经济持相当悲观的态度。

So that won't be passed through and it will continue to be eaten by the distributors. 所以关税不会被转嫁出去，将继续由分销商消化。

So it looks like everyone who is afraid of massive inflation from tariffs does not have to be afraid. 所以看起来，所有害怕关税导致大规模通胀的人都不必担心了。

未来展望与市场预期

I think that's all right now. 我想目前就这些了。

So going forward I think we'll just look more closely on the employment market and that's going to be what happens. 所以展望未来，我想我们只会更密切地关注就业市场，这将是未来发生的事情。

Again, the market is fully pricing in another rate cut at the next meeting and another rate cut in December. 再次强调，市场已完全消化了下一次会议的再次降息以及12月份的另一次降息。

And beyond that though, I think we'll just have to see who the composition of the FOMC is. 但除此之外，我认为我们必须看看联邦公开市场委员会的构成。

Because personnel changes either what happens with Governor Cook or who the next Fed chair is and of course whether or not Chair Powell will leave after his term as Fed chair is over. 因为人事变动，无论是库克理事的去留，还是下一任美联储主席是谁，当然还有鲍威尔主席在任期结束后是否会离任。

Those are the questions that will shape the rates market for next year. 这些问题将塑造明年利率市场的格局。

All right, that's all I prepared. 好的，我准备的就是这些。

Talk to you guys on Saturday. 周六再和大家聊。