Tony Crescenzi
Senior VP,
Strategist,
Portfolio Manager
Pimco

The best way for the Federal Reserve to smoothly exit from its current stance on monetary policy is to make it more a process than an event. This approach has worked thus far, with the Fed having constructed programs that “naturally” shrink when market participants decide that they either no longer need funding or can find it more cheaply from other sources.

For the next stage of the exit process, the Federal Reserve will ultimately have to alter the most important sentence of its recent policy statements:

“The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.”

Market participants understand that if the Fed withdraws its stated commitment it would mark an important event with broad implications for the financial markets, in particular the interest rate markets. For example, an ending to the commitment on rates would likely cause the yield curve to shift, with rates higher across all maturities and in particular the short-end of the yield curve. In turn, risk assets would likely under-perform, raising the cost of money for U.S. corporations, municipalities, and other borrowers, while also spurring wealth destruction. The fragile state of affairs makes this unappealing.

Escape Velocity Not Achieved

Tighter financial conditions emanating from higher interest rates and a decline in risk assets would impede the handoff necessary between the fiscal and monetary authorities and the private sector. This handoff is not yet in place, as U.S. economic activity has not yet reached a self-reinforcing condition, a cycle of self-reinforcing increases in production, income, and spending. In other words, the rocket ship hasn’t yet achieved escape velocity because the final stage of the rocket booster has not yet ignited; the private sector is still dependent upon the fiscal and monetary authorities to stay in orbit.

Conditioning the Commitment on Rates

Hence, the timing is not yet right for a change in monetary policy and it remains some distance away. The Fed will thus want to avoid giving the impression that a policy change is either in the offing or nearer than before. Any language change would therefore be geared toward making policy changes be more a process than an event. The Fed helped its case on November 4th when it conditioned its commitment on rates, indicating more specifically the type of economic conditions that would “warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period," citing "low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations."

With these conditions in hand, market participants now have greater clarity on what would spur a change in policy and can react incrementally in process-like fashion to incoming economic data and evolving financial conditions, rather than react suddenly to either a Fed policy statement or to signals delivered by Federal Reserve officials during the inter-meeting period.

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Tony Crescenzi is Senior VP, Strategist, Portfolio Manager Pimco. Crescenzi makes regular appearances on financial television stations such as CNBC and Bloomberg, and is frequently quoted across the news media. He is also the author of "Investing from the Top Down," "The Strategic Bond Investor," and co-author of the 1200-page book "The Money Market."