There will be plenty of Fed speak this week. I have my eyes on speeches by Governor Christopher Waller (Tuesday) and Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles (Wednesday). Both will be talking about the economic outlook and should help gauge the direction of the Board; I am looking to see if they push the Board in a more hawkish direction; similarly, Governor Michelle Bowman gave a hawkish speech last week. In addition, Chair Jerome Powell will take part in a panel discussion on Friday hosted by the South African Reserve Bank. At this point, text and Q&A are to be determined. If the Fed is looking to tilt the discussion toward the hawkish side (more warnings about the persistence of inflation, medium term tightness in labor markets, need to protect against rising inflation expectations), we could see Quarles and Waller pave the way for Powell later in the week. Or Powell could push back on such talk, but it seems to be the overall direction.

As to more specific measures, our understanding is that China’s State Council approved an immediate expansion of coal imports, mainly from Russia, Mongolia, and Indonesia. (Note – Indonesia is China’s largest coal supplier, followed by Russia and Mongolia. China imports roughly 300 million tons of coal, which is around 10% of its total consumption).
The State Council also asked 20 provincial governments to implement differential electricity pricing for power usage peaks and valleys as part of a peak shifting power supply policy, and to provide subsidies to power generating enterprises.
It also urged coal producers to seek out and secure additional supplies.

...my opinion is that I doubt Ambassador Tai would use the CSIS forum to break ground on any high-level decision or shift on the existing tariff or trade regime in place, which I think would come in a formal announcement from the appropriate political levels depending on the intended magnitude of the announcement. But I do not pretend to be privy to what Ambassador Tai will say and am interested to hear.


But here is out take on the overall US-China trade/economic situation:
The administration will talk and stand tough on some important issues that the US needs/wants to address, unfair trade practices, transparency, subsidies, Taiwan, human rights, Uighurs, Hong Kong, all with less and less effect, but we believe the goal is to improve and de-escalate in general on economic issues. Why? Growth, economy, markets, consumers, increasing inflation and commodity, supply chain concerns, good old-fashioned profits and lobbying, they don’t like “Trump-era” tariffs really, would like to make the case that they have not been effective, can conduct a multi-faceted (as opposed to the old one track) policy designed to help the economy and working people, manufacturing, but tough on security issues. We have been writing this for a while, more or less, been quite a bit out there on it I have felt.
Often people get more rattled (albeit increasingly less so) by hawkish rhetoric, always they rightly cite the domestic US political difficulties to any easing with China, but which can be overcome with the right concession/cover, so we talk and speculate about how the trade plays out politically. Phase One will be declared dead at some point, I don’t know when, but we have thought there would be movement on trade before year end, which is not so far away now.
Massive, massive corporate lobbying (Chamber of Commerce, US China Business Council, etc.) and financial industry lobbying one might reasonably presume may come into play as well — how do I phrase this delicately! And there has been lots of communication/dialogue between American and Chinese notables, not just private sector participant/sponsored, but with officials as well.

Regarding inflation, Brainard expects this year’s surge to be transitory, placing particular attention on used-car prices:

Next let's consider price stability. Inflation is currently elevated. This is creating challenges for consumers and businesses alike. But the high inflation readings from the spring and early summer were disproportionately driven by a few sectors experiencing specific supply bottlenecks. In May and June, new and used vehicle prices accounted for half of the outsized monthly increases in core consumer price index (CPI) inflation. These categories were lesser contributors in July, and in the August CPI their joint contribution declined to essentially zero, as prices finally began to retreat for used cars, offsetting increases in new car prices.

With that in mind, note this from Black Book:

Traditionally, as we move past Labor Day, values begin to decline, with the largest portion of the yearly depreciation typically occurring in the fourth quarter. However, that is not the case this year, we’ve now had four consecutive weeks of overall market increases in wholesale values. With new inventory not expected to improve until later into 2022, wholesale prices are anticipated to remain at elevated levels for the foreseeable future.

The seasonal factors will magnify used car price growth if they are again rising when seasonally they should be falling. Brainard recognizes such a possibility:

So, I expect inflation to decelerate, and pre-COVID inflation dynamics to return when COVID disruptions dissipate. But with Delta disrupting the rotation from goods to services and prolonging supply bottlenecks, it is uncertain just how fast and how much inflation will decelerate over the remainder of the year and into next year.

Looking ahead, my instinct is the Fed’s inflation forecast for 2021 is still too low; 3.7% feels like a minimum that I suspect depends on used car prices collapsing. The unemployment forecast for this year reflects the growing concern we had noted across the Fed that the labor force was not returning as quickly as expected, but now feels perhaps overly cautious to me. We are at 5.2% now; an exceptionally good report could take that to 4.8% in one fell swoop. Together that suggests that the December dots will move the majority expectations of a rate forecast to a full hike in 2022.

We expect Beijing will try to ensure a smooth transition of Evergrande’s portfolio but expect a relatively hard line when it comes to resolution of the firm’s debt load.

Importantly, the deal that is being negotiated between the US Department of Justice and Meng’s lawyers is part of a broad political push to lower tensions on the economic front between the United States and China – not that the justice system would be politicized, of course.
Our understanding is that since President Biden came to office, Beijing has brought up the US extradition case against Meng repeatedly in backchannel discussions, and in every discussion with senior US officials since the Sino-US talks in Anchorage, Alaska in March of 2021.
In fact, sources in Beijing indicate that Meng Wanzhou’s case was even brought up directly by China’s President Xi Jinping in his call two weeks ago with US President Joseph Biden.
The current state of play appears to be that the DoJ will drop the extradition case if Meng admits her guilt, which appears to be a stumbling block still, and agrees to pay a hefty fine, which seems, as one might suspect, less of an obstacle.
While direct linkage of the Meng case to US-China (and of course Canada-China) relations may seem rather unseemly, in the words of one admittedly hardline senior Chinese official, “If the Biden administration wants to seek China’s cooperation on climate, counter-terrorism, the economy and trade, the release of Meng is a necessary condition.”
Bellicose threats aside, we suspect this rhetoric is further corroboration that a resolution in the Meng case is close at hand.

This week’s FOMC meeting is turning into something of a nail biter with the dots being the main source of contention. The general expectation is that this next meeting is too early to announce a tapering decision. I concur; the likely outcome of this meeting is guidance that opens the door to tapering at a subsequent meeting.

On inflation, the core-PCE inflation forecast for 2021 will be at least 3.7%, a level well above what anyone on the Fed thinks is moderate, and the 2022 forecast, currently 2.1%, will rise to at least 2.2% (I think 2.3% but arguably that is an aggressive call), and 2023 will likely still be above 2% as well. That means the inflation surge is almost entirely transitory (in line with the Fed’s story) but with enough persistence to drive underlying inflation moderately above the Fed’s 2% target. This strikes me as a forecast in which the Fed is likely to achieve its objective of 2% average inflation with expectations of continued above target inflation (certainly the new policy framework is sufficiently undefined and flexible to admit such an outcome is likely) in the context of something close to full employment in 2022 and thus a forecast of a rate hike in 2022 would be appropriate policy. Remember too that the Fed will not view this as slamming on the brakes. In the context of the forecasted period of elevated inflation, a single rate hike is a very dovish policy.

Admittedly, there is also a numbers game at play here. Only two dots need to shift off zero to get a partial rate hike in the median, three for a full rate hike. The above logic doesn’t need to be adopted by all eleven participants who in June expected no rate hike in 2022, just three of them.
Also contentious is the question of the 2024 dots. I think the consensus is that the 2023 dots will reveal another two hikes. For 2024, there is an argument that the Fed will signal another four hikes. The logic here – again, entirely reasonable – is that the Fed will be intentionally behind the inflation curve and consequently will need to move policy rates quickly up to neutral to stave off inflationary pressures. Surely this is the thinking of a least a minority of FOMC participants and will be evident in the upper range of the dots. I expect a more dovish reaction function in which the median policy maker anticipates only another two rate hikes in 2024. I think in the context of the new policy framework, the median policy maker will anticipate a more gradual return to the neutral rate, driven both by a desire to not slam the brakes on the economy and the short distance to neutral. Also, pulling the lift off into 2022 could be seen as a risk management exercise that allows for a more dovish path of subsequent rate hikes. That said, I admit to not being entirely confident on the 2024 dots. I think four hikes is too aggressive but the risk to my outlook is that the median policy maker anticipates three hikes in 2024.

In the interest of efficiency and time I thought we might share a few brief highlights of key market related points in (and not in) our reports while addressing some market rumors and chatter. Please let us know if you find them helpful, and we wish you in the meantime a good weekend.

*Debt ceiling suspension will probably be included in a Continuing Resolution going out to December. Beyond that there is no plan yet.

To that, reports that US officials are pressing China to remove subsidies on certain industries as a prerequisite to the removal of sanctions can be discounted out of hand as a non-starter. Barring an intense escalation of pressure, that simply is not going to happen, certainly not in exchange for the removal of tariffs – even the Trump administration’s pressure could not get Beijing to move on subsidies.

We have also heard rumors that former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who polls just behind front runner Taro Kono, another former Foreign Minister, Defense Minister, and current vaccine czar, may choose not to run.

Ishiba is relatively popular among the rank-and-file LDP members who are not members of parliament, but his group has only 17 lawmakers, which is less than the 20 supporters needed to run the race. Ishiba may announce that he will give up and throw his support to Kono.

That further boosts the likelihood that Kono, who is popular among the general electorate because of his image as a reformer, will win.

Our understanding is that John Kerry, after he arrived in Tianjin on August 31, then set up a virtual meeting with Wang. But the topic of Kerry’s conversation with Wang was not climate, but bilateral relations.

According to Chinese sources, Kerry also asked Wang to convey to Xi that Biden hopes and looks forward to holding bilateral talks with Xi in Rome.
But before the two leaders can meet, the two sides need to show some consensus on major issues.

Separately, President Xi Jinping discussed the US-China tech rivalry, negative list, and opening of China’s markets at a meeting in Zhongnanhai on Friday. Excerpts are included below:
“The most powerful weapon against the US all-round containment of China is to focus our efforts on our own affairs and to strive to develop our economy, high technology, and the military…. Opening up is one of the best weapons against the US to contain China…We must continue to welcome and support the development of foreign enterprises in China including US enterprises as long as do they do not become pawns of Washington against China. Relevant departments should speed up formulating and introducing the 2021 version of the national negative list for foreign investment ASAP.”
Xi added, “The competition between China and the US is fundamentally about talent and high technology…We must always adhere to the development of the industry-oriented real economy, must not learn from the US or must not be capital-oriented. A capital-oriented economy is fragile, built on bubbles and vulnerable to a single blow…
“We must ensure the stability of the financial system and eliminate any potential systemic financial risks firmly, forcefully and in a timely manner. While ensuring an average annual economic growth of five percent in the next 10 years, we must ensure high-quality and steady economic development, and we must never neglect medium – and long-term development goals for the sake of short-term economic growth.

Furthermore, our understanding is that if the Eurozone data stays roughly on expectations over the next two weeks, the ECB will most likely decide to tweak its PEPP purchases modestly downwards for the fourth quarter when the Governing Council meets next on Thursday, September 9.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks will be viewed as the consensus view of the Board. Powell is slated to discuss the economic outlook and it is hard to imagine he could do so without shedding some light on the tapering discussion. Powell can firm up the view that tapering will occur in 2021 simply by reiterating the main themes of the most recent minutes and position the Board as more hawkish than the position elaborated by the most dovish members of the Board. This is my expectation.
Bottom Line: There will be a lot of tapering talk on the “virtual” sidelines at Jackson Hole. The weight of that talk will be on the hawkish side and lean toward tapering this year. Watch for that side, however, to follow Kaplan’s lead and offer additional caveats about the current Covid surge. What we are really looking for, however, is how closely Powell follows the positioning of the minutes and Clarida for evidence that the consensus on the Board is falling in line with a taper this year if Covid allows.

Second, the latest Covid wave is likely to hit Asia hard (low rates of vaccination will likely combine with the more transmittable Delta variant) and create a fresh series of supply shocks. See this, for example:

Nissan says its huge factory in Smyrna, Tennessee, will close for two weeks starting Monday due to computer chip shortages brought on by a coronavirus outbreak in Malaysia.

We are probably going to see more of these stories in the weeks ahead.

The Politburo’s over-arching directive for monetary policy is to ensure a balance of general money supply and social financing, to ensure the supply and price stability of bulk commodities, and to keep the country’s macro leverage ratio “basically stable.”
The meeting stressed the by now familiar, and slightly more dovish imperative that prudent monetary policy should maintain “reasonably ample” liquidity and support the continued recovery of small and medium-sized enterprises as well as stressed industries.
As to targets, sources indicate that new loans in H2 of 2021 will be guided to remain at or slightly above year-ago levels, and the People’s Bank of China will opt to use “low-profile tools” to quietly inject long-term liquidity.
The PBoC is also expected to cut the Reserve Requirement Ratio (RRR) for some financial institutions in a targeted way, but not to adjust (cut) the policy interest rate.

On the question of a visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken or National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to China, Xie Feng quipped that whether they come to China or not does not depend on the Chinese side, but on whether the US side “is sincere in stabilizing” bilateral relations.
But while Xie said this was not the right time to discuss the topic, the door, by implication, appears to have been left open for a visit from these officials down the road.
As one high level Chinese official predicts, China-US relations will not improve significantly, but he expects bilateral relations in the second half of 2021 will be better than they were in the first half of the year. That, admittedly, is a rather low bar to meet.
And so even if there is no imminent agreement on a visit by Blinken or Sullivan to China, it appears the prospects for a one-on-one meeting between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping on the sides of the October 30-31 G20 Summit in Rome appear alive and well. At least that is the view, if not desire, of Beijing.
Whatever tensions may exist, “strengthening crisis management,” adds this official, “is a top priority for the two heads of state.”

The ECB had agreed to commit to a symmetric inflation “aim” of around 2% already in 2019 under then-President Mario Draghi, even while its formal target has remained a slightly lower, and more unwieldy, “close to, but below 2%.” But the codification of this symmetric 2% goal into a formal inflation target is still significant, and indeed, ECB President Christine Lagarde proudly flagged the upcoming July 22 Governing Council as one worth watching in that it will be now incorporating the new ECB target into its forward guidance on interest rates.

In the process, Lagarde may have been perhaps raising expectations for changes to policy as well.

** On forward guidance, the Governing Council will need to change its current commitment to keeping interest rates “at their present or lower levels until we have seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to, but below, 2 percent within our projection horizon, and such convergence has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics” to reflect the new 2% symmetric target, and the desire to hit that target on a “sustainable” basis.

** But on a pragmatic level, rate hike expectations are already more or less flat until 2024, and so an argument can be made that the ECB commitment to keeping rates at the current -0.5% is already more than baked into markets.

Fedspeak picks back up a bit this week. The highlight will be Chair Jerome Powell’s Monetary Policy Report testimony at the House (Wednesday) and Senate (Thursday). I expect Powell will lean on a generally dovish story that commits to sustained policy accommodation even as he opens the door for tapering later this year.