The Federal Reserve’s dual mandate for monetary policy says nothing explicit about stabilizing the banking system or shoring up Americans’ confidence in their financial institutions. The central bank has two goals when setting interest rates: maximum employment and stable prices.
Lots of jobs and low inflation. That’s it.
One of those objectives – inflation – has been the Fed’s sole focus for the past year. That concentration will be tested in the week ahead.
The dramatic actions last weekend by the central bank and other financial regulators to protect depositors of two failed banks and assure bank depositors en masse have recalibrated market expectations for Fed action when it announces its latest interest rate decision on Wednesday. Aggressive action in the agency’s year-long fight to bring down inflation was a casualty, as Americans were reminded just how fast a once stable and respected bank can collapse. Silicon Valley Bank’s downfall may have been its own mistakes, but make no mistake: the Fed’s own inflation fight was a factor.
This month marks one year since the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee began raising its target short-term interest rate. After months of describing inflation as “transitory,” the policymakers finally acted. It was the first rate hike in an economy fast recovering from COVID-19. The Fed’s borrowing cost has gone from nothing to 4.5% in the past year – a historic move that until this month was seen as having little noticeable impact beyond higher mortgage rates and other consumer borrowing costs. Sure, the stock market has been having a rough time, but that’s not the economy, right?