BlackRock's Fink says market is over-anticipating rate cuts

BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said the market is pricing too many interest-rate cuts from the Federal Reserve given the US economy continues to grow.

“I don’t see any landing,” Fink told Bloomberg Television’s Francine Lacqua in an interview Tuesday on the sidelines of the Berlin Global Dialogue 2024 conference. “The amount of easing that’s in the forward curve is crazy. I do believe there’s room for easing more, but not as much as the forward curve would indicate.”

Money markets imply a one-in-three chance the Fed will deliver another half-point cut in November, and price a total of about 190 basis points of easing by the end of next year. But Fink said it’s hard for him to see that materializing, as most government policies at the moment are more inflationary than deflationary. 

The Fed lowered borrowing costs by a half percentage point in September, the first reduction since 2020 and a larger-than-usual move. Since then, traders and analysts have been debating how policymakers will approach the size and pace of easing in coming months. 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Monday the central bank will lower interest rates “over time” and emphasized that the overall US economy remains on solid footing. He also reiterated his confidence that inflation will continue moving toward the 2% target.

“There are segments of the economy that are struggling. There are segments of the economy that are doing really well,” said Fink. “We spend so much time focusing on the segments that are doing poorly.”

The CEO at BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, also said despite assets valuations and some geopolitical issues, the market isn’t facing any real systemic risk and sees corporate earnings continuing to do well.

“I would argue today that because of the expansion of the global capital markets, we’re diffusing more risk than ever,” he said. “There is actually less systemic risk today than ever before.”