Economy

Investment Banks Lower Expectations on US Interest Rates for 2016

Jon C. Ogg

Published: May 11, 2016 12:55 pm

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 9:32 am

Wasn’t 2016 supposed to be the year that U.S. interest rates finally began to rise, perhaps handily? Well, a global and U.S. slowdown threw a wrench into the works of that thesis. Ditto for what may be an endless path of quantitative easing efforts from Europe and Japan, as well as a Chinese effort to cut rates and stimulate.

Now many of the top investment banks have taken down their interest rate forecasts. This is right into 10-year and 30-year Treasury auctions this week.

Prior to this week, and ahead of the Federal Reserve meeting, Stifel projected that a combination of stagnant economic conditions, restrained consumer spending and ongoing contagion risks from abroad will make it increasingly difficult for the Fed to raise rates once in the remaining nine months of 2016 — if at all.

Canaccord Genuity said that the Fed has taken a much more dovish view. With only two rate hike expectations this year, the market’s own view is leaning toward even fewer.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch was calling for the 10-year yield to be 2.65% at year end. That figure has ratcheted down to 2.00% now.

Goldman Sachs is one such firm with a lower rate forecast now. It recently reduced its target on the 10-year Treasury yield. Its forecast for year’s end had been 2.75%, but that is now 2.40% or so — versus about 1.75% now.

Morgan Stanley is now among the least hopeful for higher rates. Its prediction for the 10-year was 2.70% or so earlier this year. Now the bank sees the 10-year more or less flat at about 1.75%.

It is also important to note that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have both talked down their own global growth forecasts for 2016. Those may be refreshed with a tad less negativity after the recent market recoveries, but there is undoubtedly an under-supply of growth in the world at this point.

24/7 Wall St. tries to feature both sides of the coin. After all, it almost never turns out through time that everyone ends up being right at the same time. Thus, HSBC’s target of a mere 1.5% was an outlier earlier this year, and that target appears to be unchanged. Now the firm is looking like less of a renegade.

Stay tuned.