El mercado apuesta al milagro de Bernanke
El stock market subio el Martes y muchos inversionistas le mandaron un ruego a Bernanke: sal al rescate de la estancada economia y de los castigados mercados financieros.
Market Bets on Fed Miracle
By MATT PHILLIPS, DAVID WESSEL and STEVEN RUSSOLILLO
U.S. stocks jumped on Tuesday as many investors sent a plea to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke: Come to the rescue of the stalling economy and battered financial markets.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will speak Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Dow Climbs 322 Points
.The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 322.11 points, or 3%, to 11176.76 as a new round of bleak economy data helped buoy investor hopes that Mr. Bernanke will step in with some sort of monetary stimulus.
That optimism comes despite all signs to the contrary. Federal Reserve officials are saying nothing to encourage market speculation that Mr. Bernanke will use a speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Friday to unveil further Fed action to boost U.S. economic growth.
"There's definitely a tint of optimism that he'll pull a rabbit out of his hat," said Michael Church, president of Addison Capital, who added he thought it unlikely.
New data about the U.S. economy have been bleak. On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Va., said its latest survey of local manufacturers points to a downshift in activity. Last week, the Philadelphia Fed's survey of mid-Atlantic manufacturers and the New York Fed's Empire State survey also pointed down.
The housing market appears to be stumbling. Sales of newly built homes in July fell to the lowest level since February, the government said Tuesday. Last week, the National Association of Realtors reported a slip in sales of existing homes, and signs that buyers were cancelling contracts. And the number of American households delinquent on their mortgage payments is rising after falling for more than a year, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported earlier this week.
Stock investors are coming off some of the most tumultuous weeks in history, having been alternately bruised by a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, worries of a U.S. recession and the continuing European debt crisis.
Stocks surged as another bleak dose of economic data raised hopes that the Federal Reserve will take additional measures to stimulate the economy. Paul Vigna has details on The News Hub.
.The lack of a signal from Mr. Bernanke of impending action could further roil markets. The Dow is down 8% in August and at various points this month was approaching bear-market territory, categorized as a 20% decline from its high. The Standard & Poor's 500-Stock Index is down 10% so far in August, even after Tuesday's 3.4% gain.
Much of the anticipation comes because Mr. Bernanke used the Jackson Hole forum last year to signal the Fed was about to launch a second-round of bond-buying, or quantitative easing. But the circumstances then were significantly different. At this time last year, the economic outlook had deteriorated and inflation was falling, but the Fed's policy committee, the Federal Open Market Committee, had yet to publicly acknowledge that.
In contrast, the Fed on Aug. 9 this year said growth has been "considerably slower than the Committee had expected" and, as consequence, said it intended to keep short-term interest rates near zero through 2013. Mr. Bernanke is likely to use Friday's address to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City conference to elaborate on the committee's economic outlook, rather than break new ground.
On Aug. 9, the Open Market Committee also disclosed it had "discussed the range of policy tools available to promote a stronger economic recovery in a context of price stability."
While that prompted some market analysts to predict the Fed soon will launch a third-round of quantitative easing, Fed officials caution that the bar to that remains very high. Other options are reducing the interest rate that the Fed pays on bank reserves, now 0.25%, to encourage banks to lend or altering the composition of the Fed's portfolio to further push down long-term rates.
Some in the bond market are starting to believe Mr. Bernanke may choose one of the less dramatic options, said Thomas Roth, director in government securities trading at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities in New York. Some in the bond market are thinking the Fed may shift its purchases to longer-term Treasury bonds.
Mr. Roth points to the jump in the price of 30-year bonds—and decline in yields—in recent weeks. According to Tradeweb data, the yield on the 30-year bond has fallen to about 3.46% on Tuesday from roughly 3.75% on Aug. 15, a faster move than shorter-term U.S. bonds.
Economists have been scaling back their forecasts for the second half of the year, and several are putting the odds at renewed recession in the U.S. at an uncomfortably high 40% now.
The latest signs from Europe are no more encouraging. The latest measure of consumer confidence there, for instance, plunged in August
"The global economy is being dragged down by its two largest members. Most other economies and the global asset markets will not be able to shrug this off," economists at Global Insight, a forecasting firm, cautioned Tuesday. "Nevertheless," they added, "this is nothing like the 2008–09 global recession—at least not unless the U.S. and/or European governments make much bigger policy mistakes than they have already."
Still, other markets seemed less convinced that the Fed will step in.
The rise in stocks on Tuesday contrasted with declines in other markets that would normally also benefit from extra Fed spending, specifically high-yield, or junk, corporate bonds and gold. Junk bonds tumbled, investors said, extending their weakest month since December 2008. Gold, which would typically benefit from worries about extra spending devaluing the U.S. dollar, dropped $30.40 a troy ounce, or 1.6%, to $1858.30.
Write to Matt Phillips at
matt.phillips@wsj.com, David Wessel at
capital@wsj.com and Steven Russolillo at
steven.russolillo@dowjones.com