FED policy and us economy, what’s next?
Monday 31 December 2018
Research / Market
US economy: We expect the US economy to grow above potential in 2019 and to gradually converge to its long-term growth rate of around 2% in 2020 as the boost provided by fiscal expansion in 2018 will gradually lose steam.
The path ahead for the Fed: With the economy running above potential and the labour market becoming tighter, the Fed may choose to continue normalising and hiking rates until signs of a deceleration in growth materialise. The Fed’s expectations regarding inflation are broadly aligned with our own forecasts (2.2% Amundi vs 2.3% Fed median), but risks remain tilted to the upside. In our view, the Fed will be more cautious than in 2018 and we expect a pause in the hiking cycle by mid-2019 at the latest.