What we learned from Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech, and GE Vernova’s CFO to retire
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. The stock market is failing to hold onto its morning gains, as Wall Street digests Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh’s speech at the annual Jackson Hole symposium. The S & P 500 is down about 0.25%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq is off about 0.4%. The Dow industrials are basically flat. Still, it’s been a winning week for markets. Treasury yields are higher across the curve, with the market interpreting Warsh’s speech — particularly his comment that the Fed has more “work to do” to tame inflation — as hawkish. Traders now see a nearly 60% probability of a rate hike at the Fed’s Sept. 15-16 policy meeting, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool . One day ago, that probability stood at just 35%. Warsh used his first Jackson Hole address to elaborate on his belief that central bankers shouldn’t telegraph future policy moves to the market, a practice known in Fedspeak as “forward guidance.” Warsh acknowledged that forward guidance was essential during the Great Recession, when the practice came about (Warsh was a Fed governor during that time). However, he said he believes it has now outrun its usefulness and, in some ways, does more harm than good. He argued it adds to the “noise” and drowns out important market “signals” that the Fed needs appropriately modify monetary policy. Warsh said he wants the market focused less on what central bankers are saying, and more on the underlying state of the economy, availability of credit, commodity prices, and so on. If the markets rely materially on Fed guidance, and the Fed relies on market dynamics in its own thinking on monetary policy adjustments, we end up with what he described as “a hall-of-mirrors problem.” That, he added, can result in both parties — the Fed and market participants — being more likely to be blinded to new developments, resulting in an increased likelihood of policy errors. As an example, Warsh said he believes forward guidance offered by the Fed in 2021 contributed to the central bank’s delayed reaction to the 40-year high inflation we witnessed coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic. The consequences of policy errors, Warsh said, is felt more acutely on Main Street than on Wall Street. Whereas Wall Street can adjust exposure to any Fed missteps — or even look to take advantage of them — Warsh said it is Main Street that gets stuck with the burden of high inflation and/or a less secure job market. The artificial intelligence boom was another big theme in Warsh’s speech. It also is a complicating factor in the outlook for interest rates. We are at a “hinge point in history” thanks to AI, Warsh said, with the potential for higher economic growth on the rise. “AI is a new variable. potentially a new factor of production,” Warsh said. While AI will no doubt change the economy as we know it (and how we use policy to regulate it), Warsh said the progress leads to new, crucial questions that we cannot yet answer. “Will the application of AI cause a significant, sustained rise in productivity across the economy? If so, when? Will token usage be complementary or competitive to labor? Will the next generation of AI models demand even greater capital intensity, too, or will the models themselves help devise a capital-light solution?” Warsh rhetorically asked. “Among the other yet unknowns is the resulting market structure: who gets to make the money? It’s not obvious where the returns on capital will land, or on what timescale. Early on, how much of the surplus goes to owners of scarce assets — the AI labs or chipmakers, or energy producers or cloud providers? Over time, how much of that value accrues to businesses and consumers? Importantly, what are the broad implications for workers and for the employment side of the Fed’s mandate?” Our takeaway here is that while it’s too soon to know the answers to these questions, and therefore too soon to act on, it is clear that artificial intelligence will color the Fed’s thinking on rates going forward. GE Vernova is getting a new finance chief as Ken Parks plans to retire next year. After the close Thursday, the gas turbine producer said Claire McDonough will take over as CFO on Jan. 1, joining the company from Rivian Automotive, where she’s served in the same role at the electric vehicle maker for five years. The most important thing to get out of the way is that Parks’ departure is a retirement, and he’s staying on at the company through its next two earnings calls. Anytime you see a headline that a CFO is leaving, you want to be able to quickly rule out a worst-case scenario. We can safely do that here, given the orderly transition. Parks is also staying on as an advisor to CEO Scott Strazik through the first quarter of 2027. McDonough has an experienced resume, with plenty of familiarity leading a company involved in manufacturing. She helped lead Rivian through its 2021 initial public offering, secondary capital raises, and the creation of a joint venture with Volkswagen. GE Vernova is no stranger to JVs, either, having a long-standing one with Japan’s Hitachi for nuclear. Earlier this week, the company also inked a JV with Korea’s LS Electric. “She brings a sophisticated blend of capital markets expertise and hands-on operational leadership. Claire is a highly disciplined, detail-oriented leader who thrives in complex, mission-driven environments,” CEO Strazik said in a press release announcing the transition. “I am confident she’s the right leader for GE Vernova as we continue to grow profitably as a company and advance the future of energy.” Shares of GEV are down over 2%, though we’re seeing weakness in other AI infrastructure names including Caterpillar, Club names Corning and Eaton, and Vertiv. Looking ahead to next week, Palo Alto Networks reports Tuesday after the closing bell, followed by Broadcom on Wednesday evening. Other notable earning reports are Dell , Hewlett Packard Enterprise , Snowflake , Five Below , Ciena , Campbell’s , Medtronic , Zscaler , and Lululemon . It’s also jobs week, culminating Friday with the release of the August nonfarm payrolls report. We often say this is the single most important economic report of the month. The stakes are higher than usual given the fact that there was a negative 23,000 print in July. Some of the weakness may have been related to the end of the FIFA World Cup, so a solidly positive number should help reassure investors about the health of the labor market. While strong job gains may give the Fed more reason to potentially hike interest rates before year-end, we generally prefer to see job gains because, ultimately, we want a healthy economy. The economy is expected to have added 65,000 jobs in August, according to economists polled by FactSet. The unemployment rate is expected to be increase 0.1% from July to 4.2%. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. 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