17 Dec 2015
Dollar: Buy the dip after dovish hike, aimed at causing minimum market stress - SocGen
FXStreet (Delhi) – Kit Juckes, Research Analyst at Societe Generale, notes that the FOMC has finally raised the Fed Funds rate, as universally expected, by 25bp.
Key Quotes
“The text of the FOMC Statement is at least as dovish as most market participants had expected, suggesting that with “gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will continue to expand at a moderate pace and labor market indicators will continue to strengthen”.
The Fed’s ‘dot-path’ is a little more compressed than it was but it hasn’t come down to any significant degree. The long-run rate projection too, has not come down. The dovish bias therefore, is entirely in the text of the Statement and was supported by the tone of Fed Chair Yellen’s Press Conference.
At this point, I’ll guess an end-year EUR/USD rate at 1.11 and a range for the next month or two of 1.05-1.15. A wide range that reflects uncertainty. However, given a Fed forecast of unemployment bottoming out soon, I’d also guess that a continuation of the 204k rate of NFP gains of the last 5 years will take unemployment lower, faster and make the market move towards the pace of hikes that is implied by the dots. That will/should support the dollar over time. EUR/USD will get to parity, just not yet…”
Key Quotes
“The text of the FOMC Statement is at least as dovish as most market participants had expected, suggesting that with “gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will continue to expand at a moderate pace and labor market indicators will continue to strengthen”.
The Fed’s ‘dot-path’ is a little more compressed than it was but it hasn’t come down to any significant degree. The long-run rate projection too, has not come down. The dovish bias therefore, is entirely in the text of the Statement and was supported by the tone of Fed Chair Yellen’s Press Conference.
At this point, I’ll guess an end-year EUR/USD rate at 1.11 and a range for the next month or two of 1.05-1.15. A wide range that reflects uncertainty. However, given a Fed forecast of unemployment bottoming out soon, I’d also guess that a continuation of the 204k rate of NFP gains of the last 5 years will take unemployment lower, faster and make the market move towards the pace of hikes that is implied by the dots. That will/should support the dollar over time. EUR/USD will get to parity, just not yet…”