Markets Do Not Trust Yellen as Rates Rise

“Janet Yellen said the Federal Reservewasn’t altering policy when it overhauled the way it signals changes in borrowing costs. Investors didn’t buy it.

In her first press conference as Fed chair, Yellen emphasized that dropping a 6.5 percent unemployment threshold for considering an interest-rate increase “does not indicate any change in the committee’s policy intentions.”

Rather than paying heed to Yellen’s assertion, investors seized on an increase in Fed officials’ own interest-rate forecasts and Yellen’s comment that that borrowing costs could start rising “around six months” after it stops buying bonds. Yields on two-year Treasury notes climbed as much as 10 basis points, the most since June 2011.

The market reaction highlights the perils faced by central bankers when they retreat to language investors consider vague after setting precise numerical markers for changes in policy. Lacking specific guidance in the Fed’s policy statement, investors swung toward the next best thing: Fed officials’ own forecasts for the benchmark federal funds rate.

“With the shift to qualitative guidance, the only quantitative metric we have is the fed funds projections from the Fed,” said Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist for Barclays Plc in New York and formerly an economist at the central bank. “So while the statement and Chair Yellen in the press conference said little had changed, the Fed’s projections suggested that there was a notable change in the Fed’s outlook.”

Broad Range

The Federal Open Market Committee said it will no longer link borrowing costs to a specific unemployment rate, saying it would instead consider a broad range of indicators on the labor market, inflation and financial markets.

“We know we’re not close to full employment, not close to an employment level consistent with our mandate, and unless inflation were a significant concern, we wouldn’t dream of raising the federal funds rate-target,” Yellen said at the press conference in Washington…..”

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