¿Por qué el testimonio no-tan-pesimista de Bernanke deprimió a los mercados?

Patrick Signoret

A veces las buenas noticias tienen efectos inesperados en los mercados. En su testimonio ante la Cámara de Diputados al presentar el informe semi-anual de política monetaria de la Fed, Bernanke fue relativamente optimista (menos sombrío de lo normal) sobre la economía. Los mercados accionarios en EE UU respondieron a esto cayendo ligeramente, y algunos activos cayeron mucho más.

¿Por qué? Porque si la Fed piensa que las cosas no van tan mal, no llevará a cabo más estímulo monetario (QE3). Se trata de una paradoja que observamos a veces en donde noticias económicas muy malas, al crear expectativas de que habrá medidas de estímulo por parte de las autoridades, causan rallies en algunos mercados. Las noticias muy buenas también causan optimismo, obviamente. Pero las noticias ambiguas –ni muy buenas ni muy malas– sólo significan que habrá una recuperación que es lenta y frágil con pocas posibilidades de una inyección de adrenalina.

Algunos pasajes de NYT:

[Bernanke] said on Wednesday that the central bank retained its modest expectations for the American economy this year, despite some recent signs of stronger growth.

Mr. Bernanke gave no indication that the Fed was considering new efforts, like increasing its holdings of mortgage-backed securities to bolster the housing market. Indeed, his remarks suggested that the Fed’s attention was shifting to the possibility that the recovery is outpacing its expectations.

Más interpretaciones y reacción de los mercados de FT (negritas son nuestras):

Many risk assets are cautiously firmer, but a tempering of expectations for further easing by the US Federal Reserve leaves some investors reluctant to push gauges back to recent highs.

S&P 500 futures suggest Wall Street will add 0.1 per cent when the opening bell rings. This will halt the mild sell-off the US stock barometer endured on Wednesday, after investors appeared to blanch at less dovish than expected comments from Ben Bernanke.

The market’s apparent repricing of Fed QE3 expectations stood in contrast to the welcome given earlier in the day to the European Central Bank’s €530bn injection into the continent’s financial system.

Hardest hit by the interpretation of Mr Bernanke’s comments were those assets considered positively correlated to monetary largesse. Bullion, in particular, took it on the chin, with gold slumping 4.9 per cent and silver losing 6 per cent.

En su testimonio (HTML, PDF), Bernanke fue cautelosamente positivo.

The recovery of the U.S. economy continues, but the pace of expansion has been uneven and modest by historical standards…The limited information available for 2012 is consistent with growth proceeding, in coming quarters, at a pace close to or somewhat above the pace that was registered during the second half of last year.

With output growth in 2012 projected to remain close to its longer-run trend, participants did not anticipate further substantial declines in the unemployment rate over the course of this year. Looking beyond this year, FOMC participants expect the unemployment rate to continue to edge down only slowly toward levels consistent with the Committee’s statutory mandate.

Mencionó y explicó las medidas tomadas en los últimos meses…

[The] Committee took several steps to provide additional monetary accommodation during the second half of 2011 and early 2012. These steps included changes to the forward rate guidance included in the Committee’s post-meeting statements and adjustments to the Federal Reserve’s holdings of Treasury and agency securities.

[The] forward guidance language in the FOMC policy statement provides an indication of how long the Committee expects that target range to be appropriate…By providing a longer time horizon than had previously been expected by the public, the statement tended to put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates.

In addition to the adjustments made to the forward guidance, the Committee modified its policies regarding the Federal Reserve’s holdings of securities. In September, the Committee put in place a maturity extension program that combines purchases of longer-term Treasury securities with sales of shorter-term Treasury securities. The objective of this program is to lengthen the average maturity of our securities holdings without generating a significant change in the size of our balance sheet. Removing longer-term securities from the market should put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates…

To help support conditions in mortgage markets, the Committee also decided at its September meeting to reinvest principal received from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in agency MBS, rather than continuing to reinvest those proceeds in longer-term Treasury securities as had been the practice since August 2010.

…pero mencionó la posibilidad de compra de activos sólo una vez:

The Committee reviews the size and composition of its securities holdings regularly and is prepared to adjust those holdings as appropriate to promote a stronger economic recovery in the context of price stability.

Esa frase y los discursos de varios otros miembros votantes del FOMC señalan que, aunque probablemente sí están dispuestos a llevar a cabo mayor estímulo, no lo habrá mientras el crecimiento (lento) continúe.

Aquí el informe completo de política monetaria (PDF, 69 páginas). Incluye mucho detalle sobre la situación económica de EE UU y también discute la situación económica global y de mercados financieros, resumen de la política monetaria de la Fed en los últimos seis meses, y vuelve a presentar las proyecciones económicas del FOMC que publicó en enero.

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