Along this vein comes a fascinating article in the New York Times called “A Prediction Market for Inflation, or Deflation” by Justin Wolfers, a a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. Wolfers warns that the Fed’s focus on hiking rates runs counter to declining expectations for inflation:
“Something unusual is happening to prices right now: They are falling.
The recent sharp decline in gas prices is part of the story, but there is now growing fear that the Federal Reserve will undershoot its own 2 percent inflation target, hindering the economic recovery. There’s also a small but worrying risk that the economy could enter a deflationary rut.”
Incredulous, I read on….
After seeing this chart, I feel that Wolfers far over-stated the case for a “deflationary rut.” This chart shows that 49% of the prediction market expects the Fed to deliver. That is a pretty good percentage although we of course would prefer higher. Wolfers focuses in on the skew of expectations; that is, the people who think the Fed will miss the mark on inflation are predominantly expecting an undershoot. Note that only 1% of the prediction market currently expects deflation in the next 5 years. I do NOT equate an expectation of missing the 2% the target as a deflationary risk.
The main lesson for those of expecting Fed policy to lead to excessive inflation is that we remain a distinct minority. Very few people are worrying about inflation in financial markets.
Wolfers provides this good caveat on interpreting prediction markets:
“Of course, the specific probabilities inferred from market prices should be taken with many grains of salt. In particular, traders may not be betting that prolonged deflation is probable, but rather be buying insurance against such a grim occurrence. Thus, prediction market prices might overstate the probability of bad outcomes. Nonetheless, these prices embed a powerful message for policy makers: Just as people buy flood insurance when they’re concerned that a storm might do terrible damage, traders might be buying deflation insurance because they fear the risk of vast economic damage if the economy were to enter a deflationary rut.”
And a nice message for those of us expecting problems with inflation in the near future:
“Next time people tell you that higher inflation is coming, remind them that they can get rich in the derivatives markets if they’re willing to put their money where their mouth is.”
In the end, seeing Wolfers turn relatively mild data into a warning on deflationary risks is yet one more example of how deflationist psychology persists in economic thinking despite years of accommodative Fed policy, lots of money printing, and more printing to come…
Full disclosure: long GLD
There is so much focus on expectation, and so little on the evidence at hand.
“In practice we have tacitly agreed, as a rule, to fall back on what is, in truth, a convention. The essence of this convention — though it does not, of course, work out quite so simply — lies in assuming that the existing state of affairs will continue indefinitely, except in so far as we have specific reasons to expect a change.”
The Fed must start with expectation because it does not want to over-react to existing conditions. The Fed is definitely not in a state of expecting what is will always be. It is still hopeful that a self-sustaining recovery will show itself…