The Link Between Inflation, Rising Bond Yield, & Market Sell-offAggravated by Jerome Powell's speech at the Wall Street Journal Jobs Summit, the tech-led sell-off continues, causing the Dow Jones Industrial Average to fall by 1.11%, S&P 500 by 1.34%, and Nasdaq Composite by 2.11%. On that note, the 10-year Treasury yield also popped to 1.541% during Jerome Powell's speech, later closing at that level for the day.
But how, specifically, did Jerome Powell cause the market to sell-off yesterday? Let's find out.
Prior to Jerome Powell's speech, there were already a substantial amount of tension surrounding the bond market and concerns regarding inflation.
A key event occurring recently that brought a great deal of attention to the acceleration of rising bond yields were the sudden spike in 10-year Treasury yield back in 2/25/21 from 1.38% to 1.54% - temporarily jumping as high as 1.6%, when an auction of US$62 billion 7-year notes was met with weak demand. This rattled the stock market because investors were not ready for the velocity of the 10-year Treasury yield surge. Instead, they were expecting for yields to gradually inch higher throughout the year.
In an effort to pinpoint the exact reason for the surge, many conclusions were drawn. One of which relates to inflation concerns. Over the course of the pandemic, trillions in fiscal relief has been delivered, of which an addition $1.9 trillion in fiscal package is expected to come from the Biden Administration. With so much money printed and nowhere to flow yet due to economic lockdown as a result of the pandemic, investors fear that once the economy reopens again, pent-up demand will drive people to go on vacation and spend in masses, injecting all the printed money over the course of the pandemic into the economy all at once, driving inflation up at a rate that has not been seen since the 2008 Financial Crisis. Due to this belief of a looming inflation, it makes bond that are purchased currently potentially worthless because of possible subpar yield. As a result, people flock away from bonds at the moment because they are expecting that yields will rise going forward in order to compensate for inflation risk. Thus, yields are continuously being driven up.
However, with the sudden spike in yield, it creates uncertainty around whether we will be seeing an acceleration of rising bond yields and possibly indicate that inflation could be around the corner. The possibility of this scenario is further amplified by vaccination efforts contributing to a recovering U.S. economy, and the incoming $1.9 trillion fiscal package that could further inflate the economy going forward while pushing the economy further into the recovery.
Taking all of this into account, let's go back to Jerome Powell's speech.
Having understood all of these, investors were looking at Jerome Powell to see whether he would give any indication on how he plan to control the acceleration of the rising bond yield, perhaps through an adjustment of the Fed's asset purchase program, where they will step up on the purchasing of long-term bonds to drive down long-term interest rates, or even extending the Supplementary Leverage Ratio that will be expiring on 3/31/21, so that banks can further help with the purchase of long-term bonds.
However, in his speech, Jerome Powell said nothing of the sort, in which the market took as a signal that yields could rise further, triggering the sell-off even further, and driving the 10-year Treasury yield further up to a level that matches the initial 10-year Treasury yield spike back in 2/25/21. In fact, Jerome Powell made supposedly positive remarks stating that he expects the rise in inflation as the economy recovers to only be temporary, that he does not expect the move up in price to be long-lasting nor does he expect it to be enough to change the Fed's accommodative monetary policy, among others. With the market sell-off and surge in yield during his speech, it is clear that the market neither believes his words nor views it positively.
To conclude, we are now in a very volatile situation where stocks no longer just goes up. We cannot control the direction of the market, but what we can control is how we deal with this situation emotionally and monetarily. Don't get too hung up on the short-term bearishness of the current market condition because if you zoom out your chart, in the grand scheme of things, this is just a tiny bleep. As such, if you believe that we will eventually recover from this market sell-off, use this as an opportunity to buy into your favorite companies at a huge discount.
Invest safe.
This is not investment advice so please do your own due diligence!
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