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The U.S. economy grew at a much better-than-expected pace to end 2021 from sizeable boosts in inventories and consumer spending, and despite signs that the acceleration likely tailed off toward the end of the year.

Gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced during the October-through-December period, increased at a 6.9% annualized pace, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a gain of 5.5%.

The increase was well above the unrevised 2.3% growth in the third quarter and came despite a surge in Covid omicron cases that likely slowed hiring and output as businesses dealt with large numbers of sick workers.

Gains came from increases in private inventory investment, strong consumer activity as reflected in personal consumption expenditures, exports, and business spending as measured by nonresidential fixed investment.

Across-the-board decreases in the pace of government spending subtracted from GDP, as did imports, which are measured as a drag on output.

The quarter brought an end to a 2021 that saw a 5.7% increase in annualized GDP, the strongest pace since 1984 as the U.S. tried to pull away from the unprecedented drop in activity during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

Markets reacted positively to the news, with stock futures posting gains while government bond yields were mixed.

“The strength of the economy last year stood in stark contrast to the collapse in activity in early 2020, but also speaks to the success of both the public and private sector in quickly adapting to the unprecedented challenges created by the pandemic,” said Jim Baird, chief investment officer at Plante Moran Financial Advisors. “That being said, potential headwinds still exist, as the global risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic persist.”

In other economic news Thursday, jobless claims totaled 260,000 for the week ended Jan. 22, slightly less than the 265,000 estimate and a decline of 30,000 from the previous week.

Also, orders for long-lasting goods declined 0.9% for December, worse than the estimate for a 0.6% drop. Orders for durables hit their lowest point since April 2020, reflecting an end-of-year slowdown as omicron cases skyrocketed. The decline was driven largely by a 3.9% slump in transportation orders.

The GDP report, though, reflected an overall solid period for the economy after output had slowed considerably over the summer. Supply chain issues tied to the pandemic coupled with robust demand spurred by unprecedented stimulus from Congress and the Federal Reserve led to imbalances across the economic spectrum.

Consumer activity, which accounts for more than two-thirds of GDP, rose 3.3% for the quarter. Gross private domestic investment, a gauge of business spending and inventory build, soared 32%.

Inventories added 4.9 percentage points to the headline growth, boosted in particular by motor vehicle dealers, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said.

Economic growth came as inflation surged in 2021, particularly in the second half of the year, as supply couldn’t keep up with strong demand, particularly for goods over services.

The U.S. heads into 2022 on uncertain footing, with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell warning Wednesday that growth in the early part of the year is slowing, though he views the economy overall as strong.

To that measure, the Fed telegraphed a March interest rate hike, the first since 2018. Central bankers also expect to end their monthly asset purchases the same month and to start unwinding their bond holdings shortly after.

Those tightening moves come in response to inflation running at its highest pace in nearly 40 years. Data on the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures price index, will be released Friday morning.

The fourth-quarter data reflected those price pressures as well, with the price index for gross domestic purchases up 6.9% in the fourth quarter and 3.9% for the full year. The Fed considers 2% a healthy level for inflation, though a new policy approach adopted in 2020 allows for higher levels over a short period of time in the interest of generating full employment.

Powell said Wednesday that Fed officials believe they have largely achieved both ends of their employment/inflation mandate and are ready to start raising rates and otherwise tightening monetary policy.

Rising interest rates are causing big headaches for mortgage lenders, especially those who depend most on refinance business. Demand is simply drying up.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) increased to 3.72% from 3.64%, with points decreasing to 0.43 from 0.45 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment. That rate was 77 basis points lower the same week one year ago.

As a result mortgage refinance applications, which are highly sensitive to daily rate moves, fell 13% for the week and were 53% lower year over year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. Rates have now been moving higher for five straight weeks.

“After almost two years of lower rates, there are not many borrowers left who have an incentive to refinance,” wrote Joel Kan, an MBA economist, in a release. “Of those who are still in the market for a refinance, these higher rates are proving much less attractive to them.”

Mortgage applications to purchase a home fell just 2% for the week and were 11% lower than a year ago. Buyers are actually more active now than usual, as some are hoping to get a jump on the popular spring market. With mortgage rates rising, and home prices still soaring, some are concerned they will no longer be able to afford the home they want.

At an open house last Sunday in Waldorf, Maryland, there were already three offers before potential buyers were even let in the door to have a look.

“We thought that because of the winter months that it would slack off a little bit, prices would start to come back down to normal, but that’s not happening. It’s anguish, it’s pain, it’s agony,” said Rondie Robinson, who was house hunting with his wife and daughter.

That house was priced right around the national median, at $375,000, which is where supply is lean. Most of the buying activity is happening on the higher end, which is why the average purchase loan size set yet another record at $433,500.

Between rising rates and rising prices, “I’m caught between a rock and a hard place,” added Robinson.

Facing both turbulent financial markets and raging inflation, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday indicated it could soon raise interest rates for the first time in more than three years as part of a broader tightening of historically easy monetary policy.

In a move that came as little surprise, the Fed’s policymaking group said a quarter-percentage point increase to its benchmark short-term borrowing rate is likely forthcoming. It would be the first rise since December 2018.

Chairman Jerome Powell added that the Fed could move on an aggressive path.

“I think there’s quite a bit of room to raise interest rates without threatening the labor market,” Powell said at his post-meeting news conference. After being up strongly earlier, the major stock market averages turned negative shortly following Powell’s pronouncement.

The committee’s statement came in response to inflation running at its hottest level in nearly 40 years. Though the move toward less accommodative policy has been well telegraphed over the past several weeks, markets in recent days have been remarkably choppy as investors worried that the Fed might tighten policy even more than expected.

The post-meeting statement from the Federal Open Market Committee did not provide a specific time for when the increase will come, though indications are that it could happen as soon as the March meeting. The statement was adopted without dissent.

“With inflation well above 2 percent and a strong labor market, the Committee expects it will soon be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate,” the statement said. The Fed does not meet in February.

In addition, the committee noted the central bank’s monthly bond-buying will proceed at just $30 billion in February, indicating that program is expected to end in March as well at the same time that rates increase.

There were no specific indications Wednesday when the Fed might start to reduce bond holdings that have bloated its balance sheet to nearly $9 trillion.

However, the committee released a statement outlining “principles for reducing the size of the balance sheet.” The statement is prefaced with the notion that the Fed is preparing for “significantly reducing” the level of asset holdings.

That policy sheet noted that the benchmark funds rate is the “primary means of adjusting the stance of monetary policy.” The committee further noted that the balance sheet reduction would happen after rate hikes start and would be “in a predictable manner” by adjusting how much of the bank’s proceeds from its bond holdings would be reinvested and how much would be allowed to roll off.

“The Fed’s announcement that it will ‘soon be appropriate’ to raise interest rates is a clear sign that a March rate hike is coming,” noted Michael Pearce, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics. “The Fed’s plans to begin running down its balance sheet once rates begin to rise suggests an announcement on that could also come as soon as the next meeting, which would be slightly more hawkish than we expected.”

Markets had been anxiously awaiting the Fed’s decision.

Investors had been expecting the Fed to tee up the first of multiple rate hikes, and in fact are pricing in a more aggressive schedule this year than FOMC officials indicated in their December outlook. At that time, the committee penciled in three 25 basis point moves this year, while the market is pricing in four hikes, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool that computes the probabilities through the fed funds futures market.

Traders are anticipating a funds rate by the end of the year of about 1%, from the near-zero range where it’s currently pegged.

Fed officials have been expressing concern lately about persistent inflation, following months of insisting that the price increases were “transitory.” Consumer prices are up 7% from a year ago, the fastest 12-month pace since the summer of 1982.

The durability of inflation has caused officials to rethink a strategy that has produced the easiest monetary policy in Fed history. The central bank slashed its benchmark rate to a target of 0%-0.25% in the early days of the Covid pandemic and has been buying billions of dollars in Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities each month.

“Part of this will be the Fed moving away from very high accommodative policy to substantially less accommodative policy and over time to a policy that’s not accommodative,” Powell said.

The bond-buying program, sometimes called quantitative easing, has brought the Fed’s total assets on its balance sheet to nearly $9 trillion. Powell said the Fed will wait a few months then probably start allowing some of the proceeds from its bond holdings to run off each month while reinvesting the rest. As things stand now, the Fed reinvests all of those proceeds.

“The balance sheet is substantially larger than it needs to be,” Powell said. “There’s a substantial amount of shrinkage in the balance sheet to be done. That’s going to take some time. We want that process to be orderly and predictable.”

Goldman Sachs said a few days ago that it expects the balance sheet reduction to start in June at a pace of $100 billion a month, about double the pace of the previous move of a runoff several years ago.

This is a comparison of Wednesday’s Federal Open Market Committee statement with the one issued after the Fed’s previous policymaking meeting on Dec. 15.

Text removed from the December statement is in red with a horizontal line through the middle.

Text appearing for the first time in the new statement is in red and underlined.

Black text appears in both statements.