The writer is a former chief investment strategist at Bridgewater Associates
The final, surprisingly dovish US monetary policy meeting of 2023 reinforced the consensus expectation of a soft landing for the country’s economy in the year ahead. That Goldilocks scenario, with inflation falling towards the Federal Reserve’s 2 per cent target without material damage to the labour market, would be a historical exception and there is a lot riding on it.
Take US equities: investors now discount that the Fed is able to cut rates by nearly 1.5 percentage point, starting as early as March, helping to drive double-digit earnings growth next year in S&P 500 companies.