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Hassett and Leavitt suggest limited data for October, clouding Fed and Wall Street outlook
The markets are ending the week on a low note as the global selloff continued in Asia and Europe this morning, prompted by rising uncertainty stemming from the U.S. economy. Doubts about a much-anticipated December interest rate cut from the Fed are mounting, with the likely outcome obscured by patchy data after Washington’s government shutdown.
Wall Street was bumpy yesterday. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones posted contractions of more than 1.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite fell by 2.3%. The VIX volatility index shot up by more than 20%, suggesting that skittish analysts expect the turbulence to continue.
Europe was down in early trading Friday, most notably London’s FTSE 100 and Madrid’s IBEX 35, which dropped by more than 1% apiece. Germany’s DAX also dropped 0.79%. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.77% at the end of the week, while the Shanghai Stock Exchange dropped 0.97% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.85%. South Korea’s KOSPI lost an eye-watering 3.81% as foreigners pulled their money out of the country.
Part of the unease in the market stems from the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) final base rate decision at the end of the year. A month ago, investors were placing the likelihood at near-95% that Chairman Powell would announce a 25bps cut in the final Fed meeting of the year. Fortune reported earlier this week that these odds have steadily fallen, and at the time of writing sit at 50/50 for a cut or hold, per CME’s FedWatch barometer.
The shift has come down to increasingly hawkish chatter from members of the FOMC, who are unlikely to have a clear picture of the economy come December 9. That’s because the White House has already begun signalling that the data collected during the government shutdown is unlikely to be shared in full.
“The Democrats may have permanently damaged the Federal Statistical System with October CPI [Consumer Price Index] and jobs reports likely never being released,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday. “All of that economic data released will be permanently impaired, leaving our policy makers at the Fed flying blind at a critical period.”
Yesterday, White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett had more bad news: “The household survey wasn’t conducted in October, so we’re going to get half the employment report. We’ll get the jobs part, but we won’t get the unemployment rate.”
Although the data blip will only be for October, it’s a gaping hole in information at a time when the Fed’s dual mandate of inflation at 2% and maximum employment is in particular tension. “We probably … will never actually know for sure what the unemployment rate was in October,” Hassett added to Fox News’ ‘America’s Newsroom’.
Trading down on data quality
Indeed, investors know times are tough when the White House is relying on data from delivery platform DoorDash to paint the economic picture. On Monday, the White House posted an update titled “Lower Prices, Bigger Paychecks,” which claimed “inflation has been tamed, everyday prices are beginning to drop, and wages are growing.”
While the information offers some insight, economists have warned throughout the government shutdown that private data is something of a keyhole-view on the economy as opposed to the expansive outlook necessary for the Fed and for investors.
As Erica Groshen, senior economic advisor at Cornell University, wrote in a note shared with Fortune, the DoorDash data should not be used as an outright substitute for official federal reporting. The former commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said: “Some prices are always falling, even in the presence of overall inflation. So, it’s not hard to choose some group of products that has falling prices. Likewise, most private data are by-products of business activities; the underlying data are not designed to answer critical policy questions.”
She added that data from consumer brands like DoorDash also won’t hold data on other critical consumer expenses like medical care or housing inflation, and “don’t have a long track record of providing reliable data” akin to federal agencies.
Meanwhile, Thierry Wizman, global FX and rates strategist at Macquarie Group, said he hopes there will soon be “an explanation for how, when, and if data ‘fill-ins’ will be released.” He added: “If one data series may need to be prioritized, however, it is likely to be CPI, since it figures prominently in cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) used to pay some workers and some benefit recipients.”
As such, he added in the note yesterday: “We think that it is possible that Powell is forced into a compromise by which the Fed either (1) stays on hold in December, or (2) if it does cut, is obligated subsequently to signal that the rate cutting cycle may be over.”
Here’s a snapshot of the markets ahead of the opening bell in New York this morning:
- S&P 500 futures are down 0.21% this morning. The last session closed down 1.66%.
- STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.79% in early trading.
- The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 1.18% in early trading.
- Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 1.77%.
- China’s CSI 300 was down 1.57%.
- The South Korea KOSPI was down 3.81%.
- India’s NIFTY 50 is down 0.45%.
- Bitcoin was down to $97K.
