Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell promised to start cutting interest rates during his speech at the annual 2024 Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on Friday.
This will mark the central bank’s first rate cut since 2020, and is already proving bullish for Bitcoin’s price.
The Fed Pivot Is Confirmed
“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Powell told the crowd. “The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.”
Powell noted that recent inflation and labor market data reflected an “evolving situation” where the “upside risks to inflation have diminished.”
“While the task is not complete, we have made a good deal of progress toward that outcome,” he said. That said, the downside risks of employment have begun to rise, with unemployment reaching 4.2% in July.
“All told, the healing from pandemic distortions, our efforts to moderate aggregate demand, and the anchoring of expectations have worked together to put inflation on what increasingly appears to be a sustainable path to our 2 percent objective,” he continued.
The Fed’s Rate Cycle
The Fed began raising interest rates in early 2022 in response to surging inflation in the United States, which peaked in June 2022 at a high of 9.1%.
Inflation began to surge in 2021 following both the central bank and the government’s stimulative policies to uphold the economy during the coronavirus pandemic, combined with supply chain constraints caused by the pandemic itself.
Likewise, Bitcoin’s price exploded largely thanks to near-zero interest rates, rising from $3500 in March 2020 to $64,000 in April 2021.
Powell admitted during his speech that the Fed was late to recognize how persistent rising inflation would be in 2021, having mistakenly labeled the signs as “transitory” until October of that year.
Just as the Fed began to shift its policy stance the following month, Bitcoin turned around from its then-all-time-high of $69,000, destined to plummet back to a low of $15,500 twelve months later. Bitcoin has historically strongly correlated to stocks, and both have been highly responsive to monetary policy changes.
According to CME FedWatch, markets are now virtually certain of a rate cut at the next Federal Open Markets Committee meeting in September. Most expect a 25 basis point cut, though the market ascribes a 32.5% chance to a 50 basis point cut, bringing rates below 5%.
The Fed’s upcoming pivot will follow that of neighboring central banks who cut earlier this year. The Bank of Canada started cutting rates on June 5, while the European Central Bank reversed course one day later.
