美国经济周刊

Us Economic WeeklyEconomics-NorthAmerica NorthAmerica Economics Strait to Business Aichi Amemiya-NSI aichi.amemiya@nomura.com+12126679347JeremySchwartz-NSI including the 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon point to signs ofdeescalation.Fed chair nominee Kevin Warsh is scheduled to testify in front of the Senate Banking jeremy.schwartz@nomura.com+12126679637Ruchir Sharma-NSI committee on 21 April. Despite the chances of an immediate rate cut fainting due tothe conflict in the Middle East, we expect Warsh will be dovish in the medium term..Incorporating the March PPI report and import prices, we revised up our core PCE ruchir.sharma@nomura.com+12126679186Jacklyn Goloborodsky-NSI inflation forecast to 0.259% m-o-m in March. This translates into 3.153% y-o-y. Globalshortages of key materials, higher energy prices and the upcoming World Cut all pointto upside riskstothenear-term inflationoutlook jacklyn.goloborodsky@nomura.com+1 212 298 4739Global Economics David Seif - NSI david.seif@nomura.com+12126679180 Tensions intheMiddleEast easePresident Trump and Iranian foreign minister announced on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz hasbeen openedforthepassage ofall commercial vehicles following ceasefirethe US naval blockadewill continue until the“transactionwith Iranis 1oo%complete",heexpressed optimism about negotiations betweenthe US and Iran.TrumpmentionedthatIran has accepted the majority of the terms laid out by the Us and a deal might beannounced relatively soon following the expected second round of US-lran negotiationsthis weekend.Fed update Fed Chair nominee Kevin Warsh's confirmation hearing is scheduled on 21 April.Warsh hasnotspokenpubliclyforawhile,butTreasurySecretaryBessent'srecentremarksareimportant clues to gauge Warsh's policy stance since they might share views on monetarypolicy. Bessent recently said that he understands why the Fed might want to wait andassess howtheMiddle East conflict will play out.Warsh could echo Bessent's statementand support the Fed's current wait-and-see strategy.That said, Warsh is likely to advocateforloweringratesinthemediumtermoncetheIranWarends.Otherthaninterestratepolicy,it wouldbekeyto monitor his latest views on the Fed's balance sheet policy,andcommunication strategy.Warsh could reiterate his long-held view to reduce the balancesheet inthelong run andsimplifytheFed'scommunicationwithmarketsthroughrevamping the Summary of Economic Projections and the“dot plot."Note that SenatorThom Tillis,a member of the Senate Banking Committee, reiterated earlierthis week thathe will not vote to advance any Fed nomination until the Department of Justice drops itsinvestigation intotheFed and ChairPowell. An incoming dovish chair is an important development, but Warsh might not be able toimmediately loosen policy as inflation risks persists. Fedspeak this week also advocatedpatience in the near term, with some doves such as Governor Waller, NY Fed PresidentWilliams and SFFed President Daly delivering more balanced remarks Governor Waller, who is a key swing voter, leaned slightly hawkish.Waller laid out twoscenarios depending on the status of the Strait of Hormuz -both of which entailed a “waitand see"policy in the nearterm. Waller's tone was also more balanced than in his earlierdovish remarks both on the labor market and inflation. Notably, Waller“more fully"recognized that laborforce growth was weak, lowering the breakeven employment growthto keep the unemployment rate steady while he mentioned “"the series of price shocks"could lead to a more lasting increase in inflation. That said, importantly, Waller wouldsupport rate cuts later this year in the case of the Strait of Hormuz reopening quickly. Production Complete: 2026-04-17 20:30 UTC dovishones.AlthoughWilliams continuedtohighlight continued spottyweaknessinlabormarkets,heacknowledgedthat harddatapointedtoastabilizationinlabormarkets.Healso became a bit more cautious about the broader spillover effects of higher energyprices.Williamsraisedhis headlinePCEinflationforecastfor2026(presumablyonaQ4/Q4 basis) to a range of 2.75-3.0% from his previous point estimate of 2.75%, whichstill appears low in our opinion. SF Fed President Daly also said that though it's too earlytoassesstheimpactof Iranwar,itsmorelikelytoaffectinflationthangrowthThere will be noFedspeak next week as thepre-FOMC blackout period will start this weekend.StrongerthanexpectedPPIpushedupourMarchPCEforecast PCE-relevantcomponentsofPPIdatacameinaboveourexpectations.Consequently,we revise up our March corePCE inflation forecast by7bp to0.259%m-o-m fromour pre-PPI estimate of 0.187%. This translates into 3.153% y-o-y core PCE inflation in Marchfrom2.987% inFebruary.We expect the6m annualized corePCE inflation acceleratedfurtherto3.6%inMarchfrom3.5%inFebruary,whilethe3mannualizedcorePCEinflation likely slowed modestly to 4.3% in March from 4.5% in February. Source: BEA, Haver, Nomura Source: BLS, BEA, Haver, Nomura The PPl report point