Gimme Three Steps … and a Stumble?

"Three steps and a stumble" was first illustrated by Edson Gould, the legendary market technician from the 1930s through the 1970s. Ultimately the baton was passed from Gould to another legendary market analyst (and my mentor/boss for my first 13 years in this business), Marty Zweig, who incorporated the "rule" into his monetary policy indicator. The rule states that "whenever the Federal Reserve raises either the federal funds target rate, margin requirements, or reserve requirements three consecutive times without a decline, the stock market is likely to suffer a substantial, perhaps serious, setback."

But this has been far from a garden variety Fed policy cycle. The Fed is indeed in the process of raising interest rates—and they've already given us a third hike this past March—but they are also in control of a massive $4.5 trillion balance sheet courtesy of three rounds of quantitative easing (QE) since the financial crisis erupted. In short, the relationship between Fed policy moves and the stock market is arguably murkier than it’s ever been.

Throughout the recent period of near-obsessive focus (especially by the media) on the low level of market volatility—as measured by the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX)—we have suggested a spike in volatility could come from Fed actions. We did see a volatility spike last week, but that was clearly Trump-derived, not Fed-derived. The former remains a risk for volatility and markets, but today’s report will focus on the latter.

From QE to QT

The Fed began adding Treasury and mortgage-backed securities to its balance sheet in the midst of the global financial crisis, since which time the assets on its balance sheet have ballooned to about $4.5 trillion. As you can see in the chart below, there were three distinct phases of QE—denoted by the shadings in the chart—in between which volatility spiked, due to the absence of QE-based stimulus. Now that the Fed has moved away from QE and is tightening policy via rate hikes, the upcoming move to quantitative tightening (QT) begs the question whether we are heading into another period of heightened volatility.

Why shrink the balance sheet now?

QE was implemented in response to the severe weakness in the U.S. economy during the financial crisis; and with the return of some semblance of economic normalcy, comes the need to move monetary policy back toward "normal" (however that's defined these days). In addition, since the Fed began raising short-term interest rates in late-2015, financial conditions have actually loosened, as you can see in the chart below (higher reading = looser financial conditions). This helps explain the near-100% likelihood (based on the fed funds futures market) that the Fed raises rates again at the June meeting.