저자: JeremySiegel · 외국인
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중동 전쟁 불확실성 속에서도 CPI 핵심지표는 양호할 가능성이 있고, 주거비 둔화로 연준이 금리 인하 여지가 있다고 봄. 다만 호르무즈 봉쇄가 길어지면 유가가 급등해 인플레와 성장에 타격이 불가피하며, 미국은 에너지 자급으로 충격이 과거보다 완화되나 정제제품 수입 의존으로 취약성도 있음. 달러 강세는 수입물가 완화 요인.
다듬은 글
Joining us right now, the professor, Jeremy Siegel, professor emeritus at finance lso chief economist at WisdomTree. How do you even begin to think about where we are in uh maybe what we're calling an excursion or maybe a war in the Middle East and and what it's ultimately going to mean for the markets right now, professor?
Yeah, let me let me speak to the inflation first and maybe Fed cuts which we were just talking about. First of all, I think the data at 8:30 we're going to get in an hour and a half is going to be pretty good. I think in fact a couple of the numbers may come in below expectations. Secondly, we we should note and I I think Steve did that the Fed pays more attention to the core rate.
Now, we define core rates of inflation as excluding food and energy. Now, there is some bleed through obviously into into other sectors, but they've long recognized that the volatility of those two sector sectors and energy shouldn't be a major factor in setting rates. And the third is I know that Joe just mentioned we don't have that tailwind of lower oil prices that we had, but we haven't have a a stronger tailwind and that is shelter prices have really slowed down.
Rents virtually unchanged at the national level for 3 years. The Case-Shiller Home Price Index up between 1 and 2%, which is the lowest it's been for many, many years. That's a big component both of the core index and and the CPI. Now, you know, many things can happen, but I do think that the the Fed has room to cut.
You know, maybe not not any cuts until Warsh takes over for the June meeting. And of course a lot of things can happen between now and the middle of the year. When you think though about the ability to get those cuts this Kevin may I mean I don't know how many you think Kevin will want, but trying to get the rest of the board on on board if you will.
Well, it depends on what it depends on what is happening. And I mean you know you know and and I mean June seems like years away given all the news that we've been buffeting every hour we make a statement and oh my goodness it it changes. I mean clearly if the oil market if Hormuz stays closed for a long time then we go up 120, 130, 140, 150.
Uh, you know that's kind of that's going to [clears throat] really reorder a lot of things. By the way, one one favorable factor that a few people have talked about um, and that's one and it's a consequence of us being basically energy independent is that the dollar has risen and what it that means is our imported goods are less expensive than they would have been otherwise.
Um, so that that is going to help on inflation. [snorts] What hurts on the oil side gets helped on Right. Uh, the import side. Now of course that's also impacted by tariffs and what rate we we put on those, but anything else equal higher dollar is lower imports and I think that does offset the inflation.
So I mean a lot of things can happen and this war is certainly is um, is something where uh, has greatly increased uncertainty. Right. So Professor though here's the thing. For for many many years I would say the last three or four decades you'd hear of some kind of skirmish in the Middle East or something worse even than a skirmish and it would turn out to be a great buying opportunity and as a result you know you you did not have the market sort of uh wobble as much as they used to because we sort of got used to this idea that there was either a put on the market or the things just ended well.
Is that still, you think, the prevailing view, or do you think this time is different? Well, there there's two things that are very different. Uh one one is energy self-sufficiency. That we didn't have, uh you know, when when the oil hikes hit in the '80s, uh '70s and '80s, and we were importing most of our oil from OPEC in the Middle East.
And thank goodness we don't have to do that anymore. Uh a second factor is the energy intensity of our economy. And how much energy we need to produce uh for a dollar of GDP has gone way down, by the way, more than 50% uh because of energy efficiencies and and movement in the service economy. Uh we also noticed that the the big oil spike that resulted from the Russian invasion of Ukraine did not cause a US or a worldwide recession.
And and that was the first oil uh spike that really did not cause a slowdown. So, there are a lot of good economic reasons why we are more insulated today than we certainly were in the past uh to the type of uh uh price increases that we see as a result of uh the Middle East situation. It Jeremy, I I agree with all of that.
This is not going to be the same as an oil spike that we probably saw in the '70s, but even with our energy dependence that we have these days, it we're not completely insulated. We we have to import all kinds of refined products, jet fuel, I think it's more than 200,000 barrels a day. Um you can run down for diesel and distillate products that we're importing because we don't have the refining capacity.
And so many of the things that we need and that we do import uh are, you know, going to be higher priced potentially as a result if this goes on. How do you kind of game out when and where we'd feel the pinch? Obviously understanding we're in a much better position than than countries in Europe or in Asia.
Yeah, we're in a we're in much better position and of course and you're perfectly right. Just because we're energy independent doesn't mean that for oil all the refined product and everything. We are big exporter of natural gas, importer of some of the things that you just mentioned which which certainly going to hurt the consumer.
Um there's no question about that that you know, that I mean many of the economists have been looking at that and just say if gasoline is 50 60 cents higher and that it's almost there now, that could take one to two tenths off three tenths off of of of GDP. Going up $2 higher could take eight to one percentage point off of GDP.
So certainly there would there would be an impact. I'm not going to deny that and certainly we you know, we shouldn't there'll be a political impact because we know you know, in seven or eight months we have the midterms coming up and and and energy prices particularly gasoline prices are one of the things that people keep right in mind if anything else.
So yeah, there's a lot of moving parts here that are very very undecided at this point. I mean, I was very anxious Friday when and I said if it goes above 200 we're going to have a problem. What did and then came down when you know, I think Trump being very sensitive to it. I mean, it said okay, we're near the end.
But what is that end? Everyone here on the program said, are we able to go through the Straits of Hormuz where 20% of all oil goes through as well as many other fertilizer and petroleum products. I mean, that's a $64 question which I think no one at this point has an answer to.
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