【中美创新时报2024 年 8 月 23 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔周五几乎承诺，央行官员将在下个月降息，因为他们将重点从抗击通胀转向保护就业市场。《波士顿环球报》记者拉里·埃德尔曼（Larry Edelman）对此作了下述报道。
这一期待已久的转变可能标志着一系列降息的开始，这意味着汽车贷款、信用卡和抵押贷款以及商业贷款的借贷成本将降低。据房地美称，30 年期固定利率抵押贷款的平均利率已从 10 月份的 7.8% 降至 6.5%，部分原因是美联储将降息。
9 月份的降息也将使美联储陷入政治上微妙的境地。唐纳德·特朗普曾抱怨美联储在 11 月大选前夕降息是不公平的，尽管他在担任总统期间从未犹豫过批评美联储的利率政策。
美联储独立于白宫运作，表示政治不会影响其决策。
鲍威尔在怀俄明州杰克逊霍尔举行的堪萨斯城联邦储备银行年度会议上发表讲话时表示：“现在是政策调整的时候了。”
美国通胀率在 7 月份达到三年多以来的最低水平
鲍威尔没有透露利率将以多快或多大幅度下降，他表示这将取决于“即将公布的数据、不断变化的前景以及通胀与招聘放缓之间的风险平衡”。
但他的言论是迄今为止最明确的承认，美联储决策者已准备好下调 20 多年来最高的贷款利率，以防止正在降温的经济陷入深度冻结。官员们将于 9 月 17 日至 18 日举行下一次会议，华尔街预计这将是数次降息中的首次。
“鲍威尔敲响了降息周期开始的钟声，”Principal Asset Management 首席全球策略师 Seema Shah 表示。
美联储青睐的消费者价格指数 7 月份预计年率上涨 2.5%，低于 2022 年 6 月 7.1% 的峰值，接近其 2% 的长期目标。
雇主继续增加员工，但速度不如去年那么强劲。本周发布的政府就业数据年度修订显示，2023 年 4 月至今年 3 月的就业增长明显低于之前报告的水平。
鲍威尔称劳动力市场健康，但不再过热。
他说：“通过适当下调[利率]，我们有充分的理由相信经济将在保持强劲劳动力市场的同时恢复到2%的通胀率。”
投资者在很大程度上已经消化了美联储下个月降息的影响，但他们仍推高了股价，标准普尔500指数上涨1.1%，在连续一个月下跌后连续第二周上涨。随着价格上涨，基准10年期美国国债收益率从3.85%降至3.8%。
许多长期借款利率，如抵押贷款，都与10年期美国国债挂钩。
华尔街在期货市场上押注美联储9月份的举措将使其基准贷款利率下调四分之一个百分点，自2023年7月最后一次加息以来，该利率一直保持在5.3%。投资者预计到今年年底，利率将降至4.3%的低点。
美联储官员一直在等待更多证据表明通胀率可持续地达到 2%。7 月份消费者价格指数报告给他们带来了好消息，该报告显示连续第五个月下降。
与此同时，劳动力市场继续失去动力。
劳工部本月早些时候表示，7 月份雇主新增就业岗位数量出人意料地少，只有 11.4 万个，低于今年前六个月的平均 21.8 万个。周三，劳工部发布了就业数据修正，显示截至 3 月份的一年中，雇主新增就业岗位比之前报告的少 81.8 万个。
波士顿学院经济学家 Brian Bethune 表示：“就业人数增长的下行修正并不令人意外。这与过去一年我们看到的实际利率逐步上升至近期 3% 的水平相一致。”
7 月份失业率达到 4.3%，高于 2023 年 4 月的 3.4%。这一增长触发了一个可靠的衰退指标，即萨姆规则，尽管制定规则的 Claudia Sahm 指出，失业率上升是因为更多人进入劳动力市场，而不是因为裁员人数增加。
鲍威尔在讲话中表示：“我们并不寻求也不欢迎劳动力市场状况进一步降温。我们将竭尽所能支持强劲的劳动力市场，同时进一步实现价格稳定。”
本报告使用彭博新闻社的材料。
题图：美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔周五在怀俄明州杰克逊霍尔与加拿大银行行长蒂芙·麦克勒姆和英格兰银行行长安德鲁·贝利进行了交谈。Natalie Behring/Photographer: Natalie Behring/Bl
附原英文报道：
‘The time has come’: Fed Chair Jerome Powell signals rate cut in September
By Larry Edelman Globe Columnist,Updated August 23, 2024
Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, all but promised on Friday that central bank officials would cut interest rates next month as they shift their focus from fighting inflation to protecting the job market.
The long-anticipated shift, which could mark the beginning of series of interest rate cuts, would mean lower borrowing costs for car loans, credit cards, and mortgages, and for business loans. The average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage has already fallen to 6.5 percent, according to Freddie Mac, from 7.8 percent in October, partly in anticipation of the Fed lowering rates.
A September rate cut would also put the Fed in a politically delicate situation. Donald Trump has complained that it would be unfair for the Fed to lower rates so close to the November election, even though he never hesitated to criticize its rate policies during his presidency.
The Fed, which operates independently from the White House, has said politics don’t factor into its decisions.
“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Powell said in a speech at the annual Kansas City Fed conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
US inflation reaches its lowest level in more than three years in July
Powell did not tip his hand on how fast or how far rates would decline, saying it would depend on “incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks” between inflation and a slowdown in hiring.
But his comments were the most explicit acknowledgment yet that Fed policy makers are ready to roll back the highest lending rates in more than 20 years to prevent the cooling economy from sliding into a deep freeze. Officials next meet on Sept. 17-18 for what Wall Street expects to be the first of several rate cuts.
“Powell has rung the bell for the start of the cutting cycle,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.
The Fed’s preferred index of consumer prices rose at an estimated 2.5 percent annual pace in July, down from a peak of 7.1 percent in June 2022 and near its long-term target of 2 percent.
Employers are continuing to add workers but not at the same robust pace as last year. An annual revision to government employment data released this week showed that job growth was significantly lower than previously reported from April 2023 to March of this year.
Powell described the labor market as healthy but no longer overheated.
“With an appropriate dialing back of [interest rates], there is good reason to think that the economy will get back to 2 percent inflation while maintaining a strong labor market,” he said.
Investors had largely priced in a Fed cut next month, but they still pushed stock prices higher, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 index rising 1.1 percent to post its second straight winning week after a month of losses. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 3.8 percent from 3.85 percent, as the price rose.
Many long-term borrowing rates, such as mortgages, are tied to the 10-year Treasury.
Wall Street boosted bets in futures markets that the Fed’s September move would be a quarter-point reduction to its benchmark lending rate, which has stood at 5.3 percent since the last of its 11 rate hikes in July 2023. Investors expect the rate to fall to as low as 4.3 percent by the end of the year.
Fed officials had been waiting for more evidence that inflation was on a sustainable path to 2 percent. They got good news with the Consumer Price Index report for July, which registered its fifth straight monthly decline.
Meanwhile, the labor market has continued to lose steam.
The Labor Department said earlier this month that employers added a surprisingly small 114,000 jobs in July, down from an average of 218,000 jobs in the first six months of the year. And on Wednesday it released revisions to employment data that showed employers added 818,000 fewer jobs in the year through March than previously reported.
“The downside revision to payroll employment gains is not really a surprise,” said Brian Bethune, an economist at Boston College. “It is consistent with the progressive increase in real interest rates that we have seen over the past year to recent levels of 3 percent.”
The unemployment rate hit 4.3 percent in July, up from 3.4 in April 2023. That jump triggered a reliable recession indicator known as the Sahm Rule, though Claudia Sahm, who formulated rule, noted that the jobless rate has risen because more people have entered the labor force, not because layoffs are on the rise.
“We do not seek or welcome further cooling in labor market conditions,” Powell said in his speech. “We will do everything we can to support a strong labor market as we make further progress toward price stability.”
Material from Bloomberg News was used in this report.
