Why are stock soaring in response to the Fed statement and latest set of projections? Because, as Bloomberg promptly calculated, the FOMC revised down all forecasts for 2015 since the previous SEP was released on Dec. 17.
The median dot for year end 2015 falls to 0.625% from 1.125% in Dec: a whopping 0.50% cut.
And there goes not only the "recovery" but any imminent rate hike.
The details:
- The central tendency for GDP this year is 2.3%-2.7% vs 2.6%-3%. But the real hammer was 2016 and 2017: these were just slashed from 2.5%-3.0% and 2.3%-2.5% as of December, to 2.3-2.7% and 2.0-2.4%.
- Unemployment rate 5.0-5.2% vs 5.2%-5.3%
- The Fed now sees PCE inflation at 0.6%-0.8%. This was supposed to be 1%-1.6% just three months ago.
- Core PCE 1.3%-1.4% vs 1.5%-1.8%
- And the one that matters most, the "dot plot", saw the median dot for 2016 fall to 1.875% vs 2.5%, and decline to 3.125% from 3.625% for 2017.
[5]
And here is a comparison of the dots since September 2014 courtesy of @Not_Jim_Cramer. [6]The Fed: wrong as ever.
In other words, what the Fed just said is the following: "it wasn't the snow, it was the economy."
End Result: Goodbye recovery, hello stock surge.
