MacroScope

Richard Fisher, the Dallas Fed’s outspoken president, is happy to be labeled a monetary policy hawk. After all, he sometimes quips, “doves are part of the pigeon family.” That may be so. But thus far, the doves have had the upper hand in the policy debate – and the economic data appear to bear them out.

Fed hawks like Fisher have warned that the U.S. central bank’s prolonged policy of low interest rates and asset purchases risks a future spike in inflation. Yet despite the Fed’s aggressive efforts, inflation is actually drifting lower, not higher, suggesting there is something to the dovish notion that there is still ample slack in the U.S. economy following a lackluster recovery from the historic slump of 2007-2009.

Regional Fed hawks tend to argue that the Fed should not overreach in its efforts to bring down unemployment because the only thing it can really control in the long-run is inflation. Says Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond Fed:

In contrast to inflation, which over time is determined by central bank actions, real economic growth and labor market conditions are affected by a wide variety of factors outside a central bank’s control.

So what should we make of the recent decline in the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation to just around half of the central bank’s 2 percent target. Has the Fed lost its ability to influence consumer prices, or is it just not trying hard enough?

The outlook for the UK housing market has darkened again. The usually optimistic bunch of property market watchers polled by Reuters, who have tended to predict ever-rising property prices no matter what the season or financial climate, now say the market will move sideways for the next two years.

They say that in the next few months, the small double-dip in prices that has begun will continue. Modest gains predicted less than three months ago for this year and next essentially have been wiped away.

No one should be surprised by this.  It smacks of an awakening to reality more than a slight change to a few variables in the statistical model. What’s perhaps most striking about these new poll results is that economists think houses are even more overvalued now than they were in July even after a few straight months of falls.

A look at the macroeconomic news and its impact on the mood of investors and the direction of the economy. Are we heading for a double-dip recession?

Jobless claims and trade data came in better than expected prompting some investor cheer today.

“We were expecting that things would slow down in the third quarter and start to pick up in the fourth quarter, but now it seems like the slowdown in the third quarter wasn’t as severe as we feared,” said David Sloan, an economist at 4CAST in New York.

A look at the macroeconomic news and its impact on the mood of investors and the direction of the economy. Are we heading for a double-dip recession?

The housing market is more closely related to the price of luxury items than staple goods such as food and clothing, reports David Leonhardt in the NYT. This being the case, don’t treat your home like an investment because the forecast is underwhelming.

But all is not doom and gloom in the housing sector. In is blog Jeff Matthews Is Not Making This Up, Mathhews espouses the “Cover Story Syndrome” method of investing. The seeds of a housing market recovery have been planted by this week’s Time magazine cover story on just how bad things are, according to Matthews.

America has breathed a sigh of relief since April, as the summer selling season kicked in and the $8,000 first-time homebuyer credit nudged consumers off the fence into the most affordable market in years. These factors, along with easy financing from the Federal Housing Administration, was the first leg up for the “W,” said Lisa Marquis Jackson, a vice president at John Burns.

The onset of the weaker selling months, a building pipeline of foreclosures and expiration of the tax-credit on Nov. 30 will likely bring rising prices upturn to a halt, creating a “false peak” and fresh downturn, the group says. Federal efforts have slowed foreclosures but have not addressed many issues including unemployment and underwater mortgages, leaving a heavy “shadow inventory” set to knock prices to fresh lows.

An extension to the first-time homebuyer credit — bandied about by the Obama administration — may soften, but not prevent another leg down, the John Burns group said.