作者：恩达·柯兰（Enda Curran）和玛丽亚·埃洛伊萨·卡普罗（Maria Eloisa Capurro）美联储主席凯文·沃什（Kevin Warsh）发誓要避免向投资者发出有关利率走势的明确信号。他的高级副手本周明确表示，他们仍然愿意遵守，投资者也表明他们仍然在倾听。
By Enda Curran and Maria Eloisa Capurro Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh has vowed to avoid sending clear signals to investors on where interest rates are headed. His top deputies made clear this week they’re still willing to oblige — and investors showed they’re still listening.
美联储副主席菲利普·杰斐逊和纽约联邦储备银行行长约翰·威廉姆斯本周发表讲话，明确表示，他们认为央行在考虑再次加息之前有时间评估经济，这些言论削弱了投资者对本月加息的预期。
Speeches this week by Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson and New York Fed President John Williams made it clear they believe the central bank has time to assess the economy before considering another rate increase, comments that reeled in investor expectations for hike this month.
这些言论仅相隔两天发表，并不意味着美联储不会进一步调整政策。官员们继续警告称，通胀过高，10月14日公布的消费者价格数据可能会在这场辩论中发挥重要作用。
The remarks — delivered just two days apart — don’t mean the Fed won’t adjust policy any further. Officials continue to warn that inflation is too high, and consumer price data due on Oct. 14 could play a big role in that debate.
然而，美联储的密切观察人士表示，这两次演讲的要点是明确的：在美联储9月11日加息之后，交易员们提前押注再次加息。16日加息，以及债券收益率的大幅跃升，导致借贷成本大幅上升。
Yet close observers of the Fed said the takeaway from both speeches was clear: Traders had gotten ahead of themselves in betting on another hike in the wake of the Fed’s Sept. 16 rate increase, and just as huge leaps in bond yields were sending borrowing costs sharply higher.
在威廉姆斯周二发表讲话之前，根据联邦基金期货的定价，交易员认为10月27日至28日会议上加息的可能性为70%。当杰斐逊周四结束演讲时，受弱于预期的通胀数据的帮助，这一可能性已降至25%左右。
Before Williams spoke on Tuesday, traders saw the likelihood of a hike at the Oct. 27-28 meeting at 70%, based on pricing in federal funds futures. By the time Jefferson finished his speech on Thursday, those odds had slumped to around 25%, helped in between by softer-than-expected inflation data.
作为纽约联邦储备银行行长，威廉姆斯不仅对政策拥有永久投票权，而且传统上还担任联邦公开市场委员会副主席。长期以来，此人与行长和副行长一起被视为央行货币政策领导“三驾马车”的一部分。
As the head of the New York Fed, Williams not only has a permanent vote on policy but also serves by tradition as vice chair of the Federal Open Market Committee. That person has long been considered — alongside the chair and vice chair — part of the central bank’s leadership “troika” on monetary policy.
在过去的一些主席领导下，投资者认为副主席或纽约联邦储备银行行长的言论被用来表达整个三驾马车的观点。然而，没有证据表明杰斐逊和威廉姆斯相互协调或与沃什协调了他们的演讲。
Under some past chairs, investors assumed that remarks from the vice chair or New York Fed president were used to signal the views of the whole troika. There is no evidence, however, that Jefferson and Williams coordinated their speeches with each other or with Warsh.
尽管如此，高盛经济学家表示，杰斐逊和威廉姆斯的演讲强化了他们的观点，即10月份加息不太可能，这一结论也得到了其他人的同意。
Still, Goldman Sachs economists said the combination of the Jefferson and Williams speeches cemented their view that an October hike is unlikely, a conclusion shared by others.
“我们认为杰斐逊和威廉姆斯的联合信息是权威的，”Evercore ISI经济主管克里希纳·古哈（Krishna Guha）及其同事周四在杰斐逊发表讲话后在给客户的一份报告中写道。
“We think the joint message from Jefferson and Williams is authoritative,” Krishna Guha, head of economics at Evercore ISI, and colleagues wrote in a note to clients Thursday after Jefferson made his remarks.
摩根大通首席美国经济学家迈克尔·费罗利表示，这两次演讲显然是管理预期的尝试。他说：“在这两种情况下，这都传达了这样的信息：你不必继续一次又一次地徒步旅行，每次会议都要开会，而且你可以在这里稍微留出一些空间。”
Michael Feroli, chief US economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. said the two speeches were a clear attempt to manage expectations. “In both cases, it’s the message that you don’t have to keep piling hike on hike, meeting per meeting, and that you can kind of space things out a little bit here,” he said.
美联储政策制定者上个月一致投票决定加息四分之一个百分点，这是自2023年以来的首次加息，有迹象表明更广泛的经济正在加速发展，而通胀却居高不下。在此举后发布的预测中，官员们表示支持今年再加息一次。
Fed policymakers last month voted unanimously to raise rates by a quarter percentage point, the first increase since 2023 amid signs the broader economy was accelerating and inflation was proving stubbornly high. In projections released after the move, officials signaled support for one additional hike this year.
但沃什已经放弃了引导利率预期，即所谓的前瞻性指引。他不参与季度利率预测，并且在公开讲话中避免暗示未来的政策举措。相反，他鼓励投资者从经济数据中获取信号。
But Warsh has moved away from steering expectations for interest rates, known as forward guidance. He doesn’t participate in the quarterly rate projections and has avoided hinting at future policy moves in his public remarks. Instead he’s encouraged investors to take their signal from economic data.
这一转变吸引了大量支持。这种做法的批评者表示，前瞻性指引在危机期间是有目的的，但在经济数据快速变化的时期，政策制定者对经济走向的可见性有限，前瞻性指引几乎没有价值。
That shift has attracted plenty of support. Critics of the practice say forward guidance serves a purpose during a crisis but offers little value in periods of fast-moving economic data when policymakers have limited visibility on where the economy is headed.
一个例子：本周公布的通胀和就业数据弱于预期，不利于再次加息的紧迫性，但消费者继续支出，经济增长似乎正在加速。
One example: Softer-than-expected inflation and employment data this week leaned against any urgency to again raise rates, but consumers keep spending and economic growth appears to be accelerating.
杜克大学经济学教授艾伦·米德（Ellen Meade）在理事会数十年的职业生涯中为美联储官员提供建议，她表示，杰斐逊和威廉姆斯的演讲不一定达到前瞻性指导的基准。
Ellen Meade, an economics professor at Duke University who advised Fed officials during a decades-long career at the Board of Governors, said the speeches by Jefferson and Williams don’t necessarily meet the benchmark for forward guidance.
米德说：“美联储的行为就像美联储一样。”“但我认为锁定利率变化的前瞻性指导和表示我们将花时间做出决定并收集大量数据的前瞻性指导之间是有区别的。很微妙，但有区别，”她说。
“This is the Fed behaving like the Fed,” said Meade. “But I think there’s a difference between forward guidance that locks in a rate change and forward guidance that says we’re going to take our time making a decision and collect a lot of data. Subtle, but there’s a difference,” she said.
耶鲁大学管理学院教授、前美联储部门主任威廉·英格利希认为杰斐逊和威廉姆斯的演讲没有协调一致。
William English, a professor at the Yale School of Management and a former Fed division director, didn’t think the Jefferson and Williams speeches were coordinated.
他说：“这些人发表了他们认为正确的演讲，表达了他们对经济和政策的看法。”
“These were people who were giving speeches that they thought were the right speeches, giving their views about the economy and policy,” he said.
就在杰斐逊和威廉姆斯发表讲话的同一周，三位地区美联储行长一起出席在北卡罗来纳州阿什维尔举行的一次会议，拒绝提供任何有关他们想法的线索。当被问及对央行今年最后两次会议的预期时，里士满联邦储备银行行长汤姆·巴金、波士顿联邦储备银行行长苏珊·柯林斯和堪萨斯城联邦储备银行行长杰夫·施密德均表示反对，转而指出即将到来的数据。“让我们看看事情的发展如何，”巴金说。
In the same week Jefferson and Williams spoke, a trio of regional Fed presidents appearing together at a conference in Asheville, North Carolina declined to offer any clues on their thinking. Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin, Boston Fed President Susan Collins and Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid each demurred when asked about their expectations for the central bank’s final two meetings of the year, pointing instead to upcoming data. “Let’s see how things develop,” Barkin said.
尽管如此，杰斐逊和威廉姆斯的演讲之后，美联储最高银行业监管者、州长米歇尔·鲍曼发表了评论，她表示，再次调整利率的紧迫性不大。
Still, the Jefferson and Williams speeches were followed by comments from Michelle Bowman, a governor and the Fed’s top banking regulator, who said there’s little urgency to move rates again.
达拉斯联邦储备银行行长洛里·洛根（Lorie Logan）是美联储今年最强烈的加息支持者之一，他本周表示，可能需要多次额外加息才能将通胀一路拉回央行2%的目标。然而，她也指出债券市场的期限溢价不断上升--投资者持有长期债务所需的额外收益率。她说，那里的增长也可能有助于减缓经济增长。
Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan, who has been among the Fed’s strongest advocates for rate hikes this year, said this week that multiple additional rate hikes will probably be needed to bring inflation back all the way to the central bank’s 2% target. Yet she also pointed to rising term premiums in bond markets — the extra yield demanded by investors to hold longer-dated debt. Increases there could also help slow the economy, she said.
最终的结果是，市场大幅重新定价了今年剩余时间美联储利率的预期。
The end result was a five day period when markets sharply repriced their expectations for Fed interest rates for the remainder of this year.
钟楼集团首席宏观策略师、前美联储行长斯蒂芬·米兰的顾问埃里克·沃勒斯坦表示，杰斐逊和威廉姆斯的言论显然是纠正路线的尝试。
Eric Wallerstein, chief macro strategist for Clocktower Group and previously an adviser to former Fed Governor Stephen Miran, said the comments from Jefferson and Williams were clear attempts at course correction.
沃勒斯坦说：“官员们正在做他们一直在做的事情。”“当定价反映‘错误’现实时，与市场对话。”
“Officials are doing what they’ve always done,” Wallerstein said. “Talking to the market when pricing reflects the ‘wrong’ reality.”