New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh Says There’s a Huge Problem With Financial Markets Right Now. His Solution Could Be Bad News For Stock Investors
Kevin Warsh is already having a noticeable impact on the Federal Reserve. The FOMC held its first meeting since Warsh took the position of chairman earlier this month, and there were a few things worth noting.
First, the statement released after the meeting was short and to the point. The final sentence read, “The Committee will deliver price stability,” indicating a larger focus on bringing inflation down. Previously, the committee expressed the need to balance full employment and inflation.
Second, Warsh gave his first press conference as chairman, during which he laid out his plans for changing various Fed policies. In doing so, he pointed out a huge problem with financial markets right now. Unfortunately, his proposed solution could be bad news for stock investors.
Image source: Federal Reserve.
The big problem with financial markets today
There’s no doubt that monetary policy has been a major focus for investors ever since the historic rate-raising campaign that started under former Chairman Jerome Powell in 2022. But Warsh says financial markets have become overindexed on expectations of what the Federal Reserve will do in the future. That’s a problem because it means stock prices won’t accurately reflect real-time data on business operations and economic realities, which, in turn, means the Fed can’t effectively use financial markets to make policy decisions.
“Financial market prices are probably the most important source of information to guide central bankers,” Warsh said at the press conference. “But when all the financial markets are doing is reflecting back what we’ve said, then we’re taking the most important source of information and we’re being blind to it.”
Indeed, some of the most volatile days for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are tied to big economic data releases such as CPI readings or jobs reports. That’s because those data points are a direct indication of how well the Fed is doing in fulfilling its dual mandate of full employment and price stability. If inflation is too high or jobs come in too low, it’s more likely the FOMC will vote to raise rates and vice versa.
Unfortunately, those data are backward-looking. CPI numbers are released weeks after the initial data is collected to produce the report. Jobs reports can get revised multiple times before being finalized months later. That makes them less valuable as data than forward-looking financial markets, which use the wisdom of the crowd to reflect the current economic environment and future expectations.
Of course, interest rates are a part of those expectations. As Warren Buffett wrote, interest rates are one of the most important variables in market valuations. “These act on financial markets the way gravity acts on matter: The higher the rate, the greater the downward pull.” Warsh believes markets have become too tied to interest rate expectations, creating a challenging environment for both investors and the Fed.
Warsh’s solution could be bad for stock investors
The curtness of Warsh’s first FOMC release as chair reflects his broader position on how the Fed should communicate with the public. Warsh wants to move away from providing forecasts for how the Fed will act in the future. He notably abstained from providing his outlook in the quarterly dot-plot that the other members of the Committee contributed to. And he believes providing less forward guidance will force financial markets to reflect more real-time information than the expectations for what the Fed will do at the next FOMC meeting.
To be sure, his efforts to curb communication could have the desired effect. However, there’s a significant side effect worth considering in the stock market.
Less communication means more uncertainty about the future. When investors are more uncertain, they move away from riskier assets toward safer assets. That means investors will sell equities and buy bonds. That puts pressure on stock prices.
A less communicative Fed could create more volatility in today’s already volatile stock market. But Warren Buffett has something to say about periods of uncertainty as well. “Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values,” he wrote in Forbes Magazine in 1979.
If you focus on the long-term value creation of a business relative to its current stock price, you can make some great investments in times of short-term uncertainty. And it might also provide useful data to help the Fed make rate decisions.
