Central bank

Fed Preview - Hawkish Despite War

14 March 2022 • 3 mins read
Hawkish Despite War
  • The Federal Open Market Committee meeting this week is set to be hawkish, despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, resulting in a stronger USD and pushing US Treasury yields higher.
  • First, the Federal Reserve is due to make its first rate hike since 2018, lifting fed funds from 0.00-0.25% by 25bps, and refusing to rule out 50bps moves since US core inflation is over 5.0% now.
  • Second, the Fed is likely to raise its forecasts to show core inflation ending 2022 still near 4.0%, and thus will lift its interest rate forecasts too to 5 hikes for this year, 4 in 2023 and 1-2 in 2024.
  • Last, the Fed may give more details of its plans to unwind its pandemic quantitative easing (QE), signalling it may start as early as May.

We expect the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting this week will be hawkish, despite the risks to the outlook from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Federal Reserve’s stance is thus likely to strengthen the USD and push US yields higher. We see the greenback as high as 1.05 against the EUR this year and 10Y Treasury yields to reach 2.35% over the next 12 months.

US Core Inflation

Source: Bank of Singapore, Bloomberg.


The Fed is set to be hawkish as US inflation - even when excluding higher food and energy prices caused by the war in Europe - is already above 5.0% now as the first chart shows. Core inflation has reached 40-year highs due to the strength of America’s recovery from the pandemic. This has led to the US economy returning quickly to full employment as the second chart shows.

US Payrolls & Unemployment

Source: Bank of Singapore, Bloomberg.

Thus, faced with troubling inflation, low unemployment, surging energy prices and rising inflation expectations, we expect the Fed will tighten monetary policy steadily through five rate hikes in 2022 despite the uncertainty caused by the war. This week we think the FOMC will:

  • increase the fed funds interest rate from 0.00-0.25% by 25bps and not rule out 50bps hikes given inflation is far above the Fed’s 2% goal.
  • only trim its median (average) forecast for GDP growth this year from 4.0% given the US is less dependent on energy imports but revise its estimate for core inflation up sharply from 2.7% to around 4.0% for the end of 2022.
  • lift its interest rate forecasts as a result of its higher inflation estimates to five 25bps rate hikes this year, four in 2023 and another one-to-two in 2024, implying the fed funds rate may end as high as 3.0% during the central bank’s upcoming tightening cycle.
  • give more details on its plans to start unwinding its pandemic quantitative easing (QE) and thus signal the Fed start from as early as May to shrink its balance sheet to counter inflation by tightening financial conditions through higher bond yields.


We expect the Fed’s hawkish stance will thus support the USD - as the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan still remain unlikely to start interest rate hikes for several quarters and the People’s Bank of China is more likely to cut this year - while also pushing Treasury yields higher. 

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Author:
Mansoor Mohi-uddin
Chief Economist
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