Meet the pointillist Fed. It is five years since the Federal Reserve introduced its “dot plot”, a graphic showing where different members thought the Fed Funds rate would be at different points in the future. But for almost all of that history, markets have systematically refused to believe the dots. The dot plot has pointed to imminent rate rises and traders have placed all their bets on continuing cheap money.
我们遇上了点画派的美联储(Fed)。现在距离美联储引入“点图”已经有5年了。点图是一张图表，显示了美联储不同委员所认为的未来不同时点的联邦基金利率。但在这5年的几乎全部时间里，市场整体拒绝相信这些点图。点图指向即将到来的加息，而交易员却把所有赌注押在廉价货币继续的方向。
Late last year, the election of Donald Trump finally succeeded in jolting growth expectations higher, and futures market expectations at last fell in line with the dots. Both entered 2017 signalling that three rate rises were likely for the year. Now that the market believes the dots, those dots have at last become a valuable weapon for the Fed’s monetary policy.
去年年底，唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)的当选最终成功地推高了经济增长预期，期货市场预期终于与点图步调一致。2017年伊始，两者都发出了今年可能加息3次的信号。既然市场相信了这些点图，它们终于成了对美联储货币政策而言很有价值的一种武器。
So it was that the Fed succeeded in cushioning Wednesday’s rate rise, almost exactly as it presumably desired, by the masterly inactive strategy of not changing its dots. As the year dawned, a rate rise as soon as this month was thought unlikely. And yet it has happened, and been greeted by cheerful buying of both stocks and bonds. That is largely because the dot plot remained unchanged. With this rate rise clearly signalled, and priced, more or less everything today depended on the future trajectory of rate rises. Now that traders take the dots seriously, the Fed had an easy way to signal that it was not accelerating from its prior intention of hiking three times this year.
结果是，美联储通过暂时保持点图不变的巧妙策略，成功地缓冲了上周三加息的影响，几乎完全如同其可能希望的那样。新年到来时，最早于3月加息曾被认为是不大可能的。但加息确已发生，并受到了欢迎——人们开心地购买股票和债券。这主要是因为，点图保持不变。随着加息信号变得明显，并在价格中得到反映，今天一切或多或少都要取决于未来利率上升的轨迹。既然交易员认真看待这些点图，那么美联储就很容易发出信号：它之前想在今年加息3次，目前并未加快步伐。
Beyond the dots, Janet Yellen, the Fed’s chairwoman, studiously declined invitations to speculate that the Fed might attempt to sell bonds from the vast portfolio it owns as a means to push up rates. And there was even one dovish dissenter in Neel Kashkari.
除了这些点图，美联储主席珍妮特?耶伦(Janet Yellen)刻意拒绝做出如下推测：美联储也许会试图从其持有的庞大投资组合中抛售债券，作为推高利率的手段。美联储里甚至有一位鸽派的、持不同意见的尼尔?卡什卡利(Neel Kashkari)。
Adding all of this together, this made today’s news about as lenient for the future course of rates as it could possibly have been. A third rate rise this year is now only a 50/50 shot, according to the futures market. At 2.6 per cent at the beginning of the day, the 10-year bond yield had been on the cusp of breaking out upwards from its decades-long downward trend, but instead dropped to 2.5 per cent. The fear of a disorderly rise in bond yields can quieten again.
这一切使得对于未来的利率路径而言，上周四的消息再仁慈不过。期货市场数据显示，目前看来，今年进行第三次加息的概率只有50-50。上周四开盘时10年期美债收益率为2.6%，该收益率一直处于结束其数十年来的下降趋势、向上突破的边缘，但却降低至2.5%。对债券收益率无序上升的担心可以再次平息了。
Other worries have also diminished. The chance of a crisis in emerging markets diminished once their currencies enjoyed their strongest day against the dollar in a year, according to JPMorgan. The sharp weakening in the dollar reduces for now the risk that strong monetary policy counteracts the administration’s attempts to narrow the US trade deficit.
其他担忧也减轻了。据摩根大通(JPMorgan)表示，在新兴市场货币上周三出现一年来对美元最大单日涨幅之后，新兴市场发生危机的可能性降低了。眼下，美元的急剧贬值降低了如下风险：强有力的货币政策会抵消美国政府缩小贸易赤字的努力。
And the sense that rates are not heading too high too far combined with the news from the Netherlands to drive a very strong day for European stocks, accompanied by a fall in European volatility to its lowest since the financial crisis.
利率不会升得太高太远的认知，加上荷兰传来的消息，推动欧洲股市经历了强劲上涨的一天。同时欧洲股市的波动率降低至金融危机以来的最低水平。
All of this may make this one of the most happily received rate increases on record. Insofar as the Fed’s aim was to raise rates as gently as possible, so as not to scare the children, it has succeeded. It will probably raise rates again in June, giving it six months — until the September meeting — to assess whether the US economy will really get a fiscal boost, and whether real growth has followed through from the startlingly strong confidence surveys in recent weeks.
所有这一切都可能使这次加息成为有记录以来市场最欣然接受的加息。如果说美联储的目标是尽可能温和地加息，以免吓到孩子们，那么它成功了。美联储很可能于6月份再次加息，到9月议息会议之前，就会有六个月时间来评估，美国经济是否将真的获得财政刺激，以及近几周来强劲的信心调查所显示的真实增长是否延续了下来。
But reasons for concern persist. The dot plots may have settled around the same median, but the committee moved in a more hawkish direction. The number who think there will be only two more rate rises reduced to three, while 14 plan to be more aggressive. So cutting the market’s implied odds of three rate rises to only a 50-50 shot is a mistake.
但是，令人担心的原因仍然存在。点图中的中位数或许保持不变，但美联储移向了更鹰派的方向。认为今年只会再有两次加息的委员减少至3名，而14名委员打算更激进。所以，把市场暗示的加息3次的概率调低至50-50是错误的。
And, of course, rates remain highly accommodative. The Fed has plenty of time to reassess and tighten up, but the initial market reaction, at least, increases the risk that it will have to do so. For now, however, the happiness and risk-taking can continue.
当然，目前的利率仍是相当宽松的。美联储有充足时间重新评估和收紧政策，但最初的市场反应，至少增加了它必须这样做的风险。但现在，幸福和冒险可以继续下去。

Are there reasons for concern? A sharp rise for mortgage-backed bonds, and a fall in mortgage rates, might be unwelcome, particularly as confidence in the housing market had nearly returned to its levels of the 2006 bubble. And gold had its best day since the Friday after the Brexit referendum. So there is a case that the Fed has allowed the risks of “melt-up” and inflation to increase too far. Concern will shift back to fearing that it is behind the curve rather than ahead of it.
那么，有理由担心吗？抵押贷款支持债券的大幅上涨，以及抵押贷款利率的下降，也许是不受欢迎的，特别是因为人们对房地产市场的信心几乎恢复到了2006年泡沫时的水平。黄金出现了自英国退欧公投之后那个周五以来的最大单日涨幅。所以，有一点值得担心的是，美联储容许“溶涨”和通胀风险上升太多。人们将重新担忧美联储落后于曲线，而不是走在曲线前面。
But for now, the calm that has lasted since the election remains unpunctured. The Fed is walking the line successfully. The dots have it.
但目前，自大选结束以来持续的平静仍未被破坏。美联储在钢丝绳上走得很成功。点图发挥了作用。