Week Ahead: The Fed meets as inflation bites

The Fed meets as inflation starts to bite into the US economy. Will we see any major changes from Powell and co? US GDP is in focus too with forecasts calling for more record quarterly growth. Meanwhile, Tesla hits the accelerator on the busiest US earnings season week so far this quarter.

Earnings reports aside, the week’s big event is July’s FOMC meeting.

Inflation and a hot-running economy are likely to take centre stage during July’s talks. We’ve recently seen Chairman Powell pledge “powerful support” for the US economy post-pandemic amidst a backdrop of rising inflation.

According to Powell, current rising consumer prices is down to the nation’s reopening and will fade. In a testimony to the US House of Representatives, Powell stuck to the jobs script, pointing out there is still 7.5 million jobs missing from the US’ pre-pandemic economy.

A reduction in stimulus is some way off, according to Powell. The Fed’s $120bn a month bond purchasing programme is probably not going to change. As mentioned above, this is tied in with labour markets. Bond-buying and Fed support will likely remain in place until those job gaps are filled.

No rate hike is expected until 2023 at the earliest.

But for all the Fed’s talk of inflation being broad-based, stemming from heightened economic activity, many remain unconvinced on the plan to let the economy run hot.

June’s headline CPI print of 5.4% was the highest reading for nearly 13 years. Observers on both the Democratic and Republic side will be hoping this can be tamed relatively soon.

Powell has promised that if inflation runs rampant, “we will use our tools to guide inflation back down.”

But “it would be a mistake to act prematurely.”

Sticking with the US economy, we are due the first reading of the nation’s Q2 GDP on Thursday.

So far, predictions are good. Deloitte cites technological advances may help power the US towards another bumper quarter – outstripping pre-pandemic growth levels.

The Conference Board has predicted the US economy will grow at an annualised 9% in 2021’s second quarter.

“As the economy fully reopens and consumer confidence continues to rise, we expect consumer spending to help drive the recovery forward – especially spending on in-person services,” TCB said. “These outlays will be underpinned by a strengthening labour market and a large pool of savings derived from three rounds of fiscal stimulus checks dispersed over the last year.”

We’ve also seen in previous PMI releases that manufacturing and services sectors have continued to act on a growth footing into June following a strong April and May. Three months of solid PMI performance should help power US GDP growth this quarter.

But again, all of this pent up demand being unleashed is leading into the higher core consumer goods prices the US is currently experiencing. We’ve also had reports of high input prices starting to affect manufacturing output too. June’s manufacturing PMI reading was actually slightly lower than May’s for instance.

But, if predictions are correct, the US is about to experience one of its best periods of quarterly growth since the Second World War.

Moving away from data, it’s the busiest week for earnings season this quarter so far.

Nearly 40 US large caps are due to share their Q2 earnings this week. This includes the bulk of the FAANG stocks. Netflix reported last week, but these remaining tech giants, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Facebook, and Apple, are all reporting in.

Tesla, however, kicks off proceedings with its earnings summary coming on Monday after US market close.

This is interesting because Tesla has rocketed 330% in terms of share price between May 2020-May 2021 and traditionally share prices tend to rise prior to Tesla releases. They have done so at an average of 1.6% ahead of all quarterly releases for the past three years.

Elon Musk’s carmaker has much to celebrate this quarter. It delivered 200,000 in a quarter for the first time. Tesla has also unleashed a range of new automation services, based on an $199-per month subscription service.

Earnings forecasts are strong, but we’ll know more on Monday.

For more information on which large caps are reporting, be sure to check out our US earnings calendar.

Major economic data

Key earnings data