Will the Banking Crisis Force Fed to Pause Interest Rate Hikes?

Policymakers at the Federal Reserve face a tough decision at their meeting this week: ratchet up its benchmark interest rate again to quell inflation, or hold steady to avoid stressing the financial system.

The recent turmoil in the banking system set off by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank forces the Fed to choose between its goals of fighting inflation and preventing more bank failures, experts said. 

“Inflation data say keep hiking. Financial market distress says stop,” economist Robert Fry said in a commentary.

Traders widely expect the Fed to stay focused on inflation and announce a 25 basis-point rate hike to its benchmark fed funds rate this Wednesday—the eighth rate hike in as many meetings. There’s about a 25% chance that Fed officials won’t raise the rate at all, according to CME’s FedWatch tool, which forecasts Fed rate hikes based on bond trading activity.

The uncertainty this close to a meeting is unusual since policymakers typically telegraph their intentions well in advance. The week before the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, Fed Chair Jerome Powell had told lawmakers to expect rate hikes to come fast and furious, because of hotter-than-expected inflation and economic data.

At the time, the comments cemented traders’ expectations that a 50-basis point hike was inevitable at the March 22 meeting. The failure of Silicon Valley Bank—which came about at least partly because of the Fed’s interest rate hikes—shifted expectations. 

The Fed could decide to pause its rate hikes in the name of avoiding more stress on the banking system. In the immediate aftermath of Silicon Valley Bank’s implosion, the government moved quickly to bail out the bank’s depositors and reassure the public that their money was safe in the nation’s banks.

Further bank runs and failures have yet to materialize. However, some economists point to ongoing fallout—such as Credit Suisse’s distressed sale to UBS—as a signal of how much stress the Fed’s rate hikes have already caused the financial system. 

Economists at Goldman Sachs forecast the Fed’s policy-setting body will err on the side of caution: 

“We expect the FOMC to pause at its March meeting this week because of stress in the banking system,” Goldman economist David Mericle wrote in a research note Monday.