A Peculiar Time for Additional Stimulus
In hindsight, it seems that last December might have been a reasonable time to consider additional economic stimulus in the form of a Federal Reserve Bank interest rate cut. By Christmas of 2018, the U.S. government was in the midst of a 35-day shutdown that lasted from December 22nd to January 25th. Our country had imposed tariffs of between 10 and 25% on $250 billion of Chinese imports, and China had responded by imposing retaliatory tariffs on $50 billion of U.S. exports to China. Fears over additional tariffs, slowing global growth, slowing corporate profits in the U.S. and a Federal Reserve Bank bent on raising interest rates three times in 2019 (for a total of 12 rate hikes since 2015) and two additional times in 2020 had spooked investors. As a result, and on an intra-day basis, the Dow Jones Industrial average fell almost 17.5% from November 8th to December 26th and approximately 19.5% over the entire fourth quarter of 2018. Market pullbacks of 20% or more have typically been associated with recession but, as we know, the Fed chose not to take any action at that time and the current U.S. expansion has yet to end in recession.