JPMorgan: Central Banks Like the Fed May Raise Rates Faster and More Aggressively Than Expected
nashnova research
JPMorgan's September global macro conference concluded that developed-market central banks — led by the Fed — may tighten faster and larger than markets currently price, yet equities and Treasury yields can still rise together.
Why does JPMorgan think markets are underpricing rate hikes?
JPMorgan has tagged the September FOMC meeting as the starting gun for a new DM hiking cycle, expecting the Fed, ECB, BOJ, and RBA to all move within the month.
Current curve pricing implies only about 100 basis points of mild tightening — essentially just "taking back the 2025 cuts," not a real hiking cycle.
This means → JPMorgan economists see the equilibrium policy rate as another ~100 bps higher, with risks skewed firmly toward faster and larger. The market's pace of 25 bps per quarter may fall well short.
The Fed says rates are "well below neutral" — is that true?
The Fed claims policy rates are "well below neutral," but the NY Fed's primary-dealer survey puts the nominal neutral rate at roughly 3.0%–3.25%.
In plain terms = the actual gap may be far smaller than the Fed's own narrative implies, leaving less room for a gradual approach.
Structural inflation stickiness also exceeds model capture: core PCE — personal consumption expenditures excluding food and energy — trimmed mean, and sticky-price gauges all infer underlying inflation from price data alone, missing signals from wages, productivity, and inflation expectations.
JPMorgan has raised its DM core inflation forecasts by an average of 0.5 percentage points, projecting the Fed will lift its 2027 core PCE forecast to 2.6%.
Don't wage numbers suggest inflation is nearly at target?
Unit labor cost inflation has averaged 2% over four years and just 1.5% over the past year; average hourly earnings growth is at a seven-year low, while productivity growth is at a ten-year high.
This means → adjusted for productivity, wage growth is actually consistent with 2% inflation — underlying inflation is closer to target than headline gauges suggest.
This reflects a tension: surface inflation indicators run hot, but the labor market sends a more moderate signal, making the case for aggressive hikes less airtight than it appears.
If rates are rising, why can stocks keep climbing?
The conference's core thesis: higher policy rates are transmitting to the real economy with less force than in past cycles — AI, healthcare, and services now account for a larger and more rate-insensitive share of growth and capex.
JPMorgan's equity strategists set a year-end S&P 500 target of 8,000. Positioning is light, not extreme. No speaker was bearish; bears were called "an endangered species in this cycle."
In plain terms = as long as rates rise in an orderly 100–200 bps move, markets can absorb it. The real danger is speed and volatility, not the absolute level. The Treasury-yield threshold that could break equities is likely 5.5%–6.0%.
How big is the AI capex wave?
Consensus forecasts put AI capex at roughly $900 billion by end-2026, surpassing $1.2 trillion by end-2027, with a cumulative $5.5 trillion through 2030.
Hyperscale cloud companies — Amazon, Microsoft, Google and peers — are expected to account for about 87% of total AI capex in 2026–2027.
This means → AI capex is the dominant earnings-season narrative and the single largest engine supporting the "rates up, stocks up" thesis.
Long-end yields are surging — what is really driving them?
European long-end yields are rising in lockstep, yet Europe clearly lags in AI — this reflects a driver that is not AI but global fiscal expansion.
The term premium — the extra yield investors demand for holding long-dated bonds — has climbed from negative a decade ago to roughly 125 bps, driven mainly by concerns over long-run fiscal sustainability, including U.S. nominal debt of $40 trillion.
U.S. interest expense is roughly 14% of the federal budget and rising; historically, sovereign-debt crises typically surface when interest costs reach 20%–25% of the budget. A buffer remains, but the direction is clear.
Tail risks: Trump could use executive orders to push the global effective tariff rate from 5%–6% back to 17%–18%, and a reconciliation package of at least $300–500 billion could further pressure Treasuries and prompt rating-agency reassessments.
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