, Columnist
Pivot, or Godot? Markets Bet the Waiting’s Almost Over
Investors are getting optimistic again of an earlier Fed reversal on rate hikes, but systemic risks and bear-rally traps are still out there.
Maybe Pivot will come first.
Photographer: Alain Pitton/NurPhoto/Getty
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Risk is back “on,” and the reason is that hopes for a Fed “pivot” are also back. “Fed pivot” is even trending on Twitter. Two new data points buoyed the notion that the Federal Reserve will soon stop hiking rates and soon afterward start cutting them. First and most important, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ JOLTS job vacancy numbers for the US dropped very sharply last month, and far more than economists polled by Bloomberg had expected: