The Inflation Slide Looks Set to Continue

Among the many comments on inflation in the minutes of the last FOMC meeting was the following, rather gloomy, prediction:

Several participants assessed that healing in supply chains and labor supply was largely complete, and therefore that continued progress on reducing inflation may need to come from further softening in product and labor demand with restrictive monetary policy continuing to play a central role.

Translating from Fedspeak: Several Fed officials worried that they might still have to trigger a recession to get inflation all the way down to their 2% target.

This perspective gained some support in Friday’s jobs report which showed a stalling out in a long trend of falling wage growth.  However, a broader analysis suggests that non-labor-market factors will continue to reduce inflation in 2024, giving the labor market time to normalize without the pain of recession.  While there are plenty of shocks or policy mistakes that could disrupt this path, the mostly likely scenario is a continued slide in inflation to the Fed’s 2% target without a near-term recession – an outcome that should support both U.S. bonds and stocks.