Liam Dann: Interest rates lower for longer? The US Fed's big call

Photo / 123RF

We're locked down in a global pandemic, communicating with the world by video link, plugged into an endless stream of online media, watching America being torn apart by a reality TV star President.

So I don't know why it was cyber attacks at the New Zealand Stock Exchange that finally made me feel like the world has drifted into dystopian sci-fi, but it was.

Perhaps it was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

The headlines floated out of my radio in such mundane fashion.

"The NZX has again been shut down by cyber attacks. Experts suspect Russian hackers."

The New Zealand Stock Exchange was targeted this week by nefarious activity. Photo / 123RF

Life in 2020 doesn't seem far removed from the cyber-punk novels I read as a teen in the 1980s.

So sorry for the offbeat start to this column. It's been a long lockdown.

If you've come here for analysis of the US Federal Reserve's big monetary policy shift last week, don't worry, we'll get there.

But first ...

The frustrating thing about the NZX hack this week was that it stalled the market just shy of a new record high.

That surge back into a new bull market - just a few months after the longest bull in history died – is also a symptom of these strange modern times.

There's multiple factors at play on markets, some of which drove the last bull market.

Underpinning it are record-low interest rates.

Rates have been be low since central banks slashed them to cope with the Global Financial Crisis in 2008.

Covid hit just as central banks were contemplating moves to get them back to normal.

Now they're even lower and there is less incentive than ever to keep money in a bank.

Central banks have also re-upped quantitative easing (printing money to buy bonds from investors).

That cash has poured into share markets.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference to discuss an announcement from the Federal Open Market Committee, in Washington. Photo / AP

Then there are demographics.

The enormous weight of baby boomer retirement funds is not a new story.

It has been building for decades. Now worth trillions of dollars, these investor funds aren't going anywhere fast.

What is new is something stirring at the other end of the demographic curve.

Young people, perhaps deterred by the high bar to entering the property market, are excited about direct investment in shares in a way we haven't seen since the 1980s.

That leads us to the other phenomenon driving things.

We are in the middle of tech revolution, a revolution that has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

So tech stocks have soared.

Tech stocks are actually making money here and now.

And young people like them. They think they understand them.

That youthful enthusiasm is also being fueled at a micro-level by the new technology itself.

Phone apps like Sharesies and Robinhood are making it simple for anyone to buy and sell stocks as if they were traders ... or video gamers.

It's generating a buzz about the sharemarket that makes people of my generation worry about 1987-style exuberance.

Apps like Sharsies and Robinhood have made investing more accessible. Photo / 123RF

But it isn't necessarily that bad, yet.

Let's not forget that the biggest problem with the New Zealand sharemarket in 1987 wasn't ordinary people investing.

It was that the quality of many companies on the sharemarket was rubbish. And the regulation of those companies was almost non-existent.

The financial markets community has long bemoaned the damage that the 1987 crash did to the psyche of investors in this country.

We've had much lower levels of direct public investment than the US and we've seen a lot of our company profits flow offshore because of that.

On balance it seems a bit elitist to dismiss the popularisation of share market investment.

So let's cautiously welcome this burst of enthusiasm from younger investors.

Some of them will get burned.

But if they don't bet the savings and lose the lot in a massive crash then they may mature into savvy, long-term investors. Or at worst, more financially literate citizens.

And what about that crash? If the Covid slump in March wasn't the big one, it still coming?

A few weeks ago ANZ chairman John Key warned that we were at risk of a new financial crisis.

That bubble risk is real.

But if a Covid-19-size global event can't sink markets, what can?

It looks increasingly like bear markets are unsustainable while interest rates remain so low.

That's what makes watching monetary policy - and in particular the US Federal Reserve - so crucial.

Wall Street's famous bull intimidates passersby. Photo / AP

While the US dollar remains the global reserve currency - the Fed effectively dictates the trend for our interest rates.

On Friday morning (NZT) US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell made an historic change to US monetary policy.

He shifted the emphasis away from the traditional concern that low unemployment can lead to excess inflation.

He effectively conceded defeat on the idea that this era of low inflation is just a cyclical trend.

This move allows the US Fed to overshoot its 2 per cent inflation target if required.

To quote economist Yelena Shulyatyeva, writing in Bloomberg: "[This] suggests the Fed will let the economy run hot before applying the interest-rate brakes."

In other words, expect to see the US keep rates lower rates for longer - even when the economy starts to recover.

And if rates stay lower for longer, expect to see share markets rolling at elevated levels for some time yet.