The Fed has made it clear that it intends to begin the multi-year process of raising short-term interest rates back to normal sometime in 2015.  The agency says it expects to boost the Fed Funds rate from the current zero to around 1.5% by next December.

This is a good news/bad news development for investors.  On the one hand, the economic data clearly show that the US is finally–after six years–coming out the other side of the Great Recession.  On the other hand, rising interest rates are typically not good for securities markets ( a rising return on holding cash makes long-term investments like stocks or bonds look less attractive.).

If the Fed were to begin next April, it would have to do a .25% interest rate increase about every six weeks to get to 1.5% by yearend.  That’s just the beginning, though.  Fed documents indicate that the final goal is a Fed Funds rate of 3.5%.

what history shows

Rising rates are unequivocally bad for bonds.

In contrast, inpast periods of Fed-induced rate rises stocks have gone sideways to up.  That’s because the downward pressure that rising rates exert has been offset by upward pressure from strong-growing earnings.

 four differences today

1.  In past plain-vanilla recessions, interest rate hikes come pretty quickly after the worst of recession is over.  So consumers are just starting to spend (a lot) to satisfy needs deferred during the downturn.  In this case, however, we’ll be six years past the bottom.  Is there any pent-up demand left?    …probably not.  So the typical surge in earnings may be absent.  This is a minus for stocks.

2.  The Fed has been unusually clear  for a long time in publicizing what it intends to do and over what time frame.  Arguably, investors have absorbed this information and already made some portfolio adjustments in advance of the Fed’s actions.  I don’t see this in fixed income markets, but…

3.  The rest of the developed world hasn’t made anything close to thepost-recession progress in that the US has.  As a result,foreign interest rates  either remain at emergency lows, or are even dropping.  Rising interest rate differentials–and a strengthening US$–suggest that international fixed income investors may increase purchases of Treasury bonds, cushioning the fall in their prices.

4.  The Fed is acutely conscious of the repeated mistake that Japan has made over the past quarter-century of trying to return to normal too quickly–and pushing that country beck into recession instead.  Because of this, it’s possible that stock market weakness might cause the Fed to slow down planned interest rate rises.

my take

I think rising interest rates will make 2015 a sub-par year for stocks.  Will “sideways to up” hold true as it has in the past?  I don’t know.  I think a lot will depend on whether the Fed’s commitment to raising rates is greater than its wish to have relatively stable financial markets.  My guess is that stability is more important.

The Fed’s ultimate target for short rates is 3.5%.  I think that’s too high for a 2% inflation world.  I think 3% is more likely.  But let’s keep 3.5%.  Add a 2% real return to that and we get the endpoint for the yield on the 10-year Treasury,  5.5%.  This would imply a price earnings multiple for stocks of 1/.055, or 18x.  Arguably, then, the current multiple on stocks already discounts all the tightening the Fed is setting out to accomplish.

Even I think that the last paragraph paints too optimistic a picture.  What I’ve written may ultimately prove to be correct, but I don’t think the consensus would be willing to put much faith in this idea.

My starting out point is that interest rate rises will make next year a volatile one for stocks.  Without positive influences from earnings growth or foreign money flows, rising rates have the power to push US stocks down by, say, 5% in 2015..  At the same time, I think that good stock and industry/sector selection will enable investors to generate positive portfolio returns.