세계 최대 구매자가 돌아왔다, 사람들은 그것을 이해 못 한다
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2026년 1월 14일 Miller Value Partners.
WSJ 헤드라인이 놓친 것
2025년 12월 10일 FOMC가 6번째 금리 인하를 발표. 다음 날 WSJ A1 톱 헤드라인: "Fed Cuts Rates, Signals a Pause."
이 매파적으로 들리는 헤드라인과 본문은 Fed가 당분간 완화를 멈춘 것처럼 보였지만 — 그것은 진실에서 멀다.
진짜 변화 — 양적 긴축 종료
그 기사는 "피벗"을 2024년 12월(금리 인하 후 9개월 정지)과 비교했다. 그러나 양적 긴축(QT) 종료를 전혀 언급하지 않았다 — Fed가 보유 채권·MBS를 만기 후 재투자 없이 두는 정책.
이 유동성 역풍은 2022년 봄 Fed 대차대조표가 $9조 정점을 찍은 이후 진행 중. 그때부터 2025년 12월까지 월 약 $500억의 유동성을 시스템에서 빨아들임.
이제 Fed는 이번 1월 최소 $400억의 증권을 매수할 것으로 예상되고, "테이퍼링"이 연중 후반 일어날 가능성.
2019년 9월과 유사
이 변화는 헤드라인이 시사하는 것보다 훨씬 의미 있다 — 2019년 9월과 비슷. 당시 정책 입안자들이 수년의 유동성 제거에서 단기 자금 시장 스트레스 와중에 인쇄기를 돌리는 쪽으로 코스 반전.
긴급성
- 지난해 평균 월간 일자리 증가가 2024년 수준 대비 약 71% 감소
- 실업률 점진 상승, 실업자/구인 비율이 1 아래로 하락
- Truflation 실시간 데이터 — 2025년 말 인플레이션 1.85%로 2.5년 만의 최저, Fed 장기 목표 2% 아래
- 12월 임금 3.8% 성장 — 실질 구매력 증가
- 2년-10년 스프레드가 거의 4년 만의 최고
의미
유동성 확장·경제 가속·노동시장 강화가 함께 일어나면, 소형·중형 가치주(한계 경제 활동에 민감, 시장 대비 큰 밸류에이션 할인)에 유리. 비트코인도 보유 노출 — 유동성 환경에 민감한 자산.
Most investors pay attention to monetary policy given its influence on economic activity and asset prices. However, it is not clear that everyone has appropriately contextualized recent developments from the Fed, which changed its stance in the fourth quarter more than headlines would suggest, likely paving the way for continued economic expansion and higher equity prices.
On December 10, 2025, the Federal Open Market Committee announced its sixth rate cut since the peak range of between 5.25% and 5.50%, a level lasting from July of 2023 until September of 2024. The title of the story appearing above the fold in section A1 the next day in the WSJ read, “Fed Cuts Rates, Signals a Pause.”1 This apparently hawkish headline, as well as the article’s text, came off as though the Fed was done easing for the time being, which could not be farther from the truth.
News outlets are in the business of generating clicks, which incentivizes controversial, punchy headlines and salacious stories often limited by authors’ perspectives, contextual knowledge or incentives unbeknownst to readers. A punchy headline failing to capture the full story was indeed the case in the aforementioned article, written by “The Fed Whisperer,” a journalist who many investors consider to have the authoritative inside track on machinations within the Fed.2
The article went on to flag dissension around the future path of rate cuts and compared the “pivot” to what happened in December of 2024, when the FOMC cut its target rate and then held steady for almost nine months. It failed entirely to mention the end of quantitative tightening, or allowing treasuries and mortgages owned by the Fed to mature without reinvestment. This liquidity headwind has in fact been in place since the spring of 2022, when the Fed balance sheet peaked at nearly $9 trillion in assets. Between then and December of 2025, policymakers have been draining approximately $50 billion per month in liquidity from the system in an attempt to put a damper on inflation that spiked with demand as humans reemerged from the pandemic only to meet shuttered supply chains. Now, the Fed is expected to purchase at least $40 billion in securities this January, with “tapering” likely to occur later this year.3
The change in monetary policy is far more significant than headlines suggest, as the shift is more akin to what happened in September of 2019, when policymakers reversed course from years of removing liquidity to then firing up the printing presses on the heels of major stress in short-term funding markets. Signs of similar liquidity strains began to crop up this fall as banking system reserves fell to dangerous levels in our view due to a combination of the government shutdown and the aforementioned quantitative tightening.
Despite misguided political attacks about the need to “lower rates,” it appears the underappreciated shift to heavy accommodation from policymakers is the right move. Unlike rate changes, which affect the cost of floating-rate loans and work with more of a lag, direct asset purchases are the fastest and most direct way to shore up liquidity and change behavior throughout the system, especially when those purchases represent a stark reversal of what has been going on for years. Urgency is indeed important — last year, average monthly job growth was nearly 71% below its 2024 level, and the unemployment rate continued to tick higher while the ratio of unemployed workers to job openings dropped below 1.
The good news is the Fed recognizes this and has room to act. According to data from Truflation, which tracks inflation on a real-time basis, the rate of inflation at the end of 2025 was 1.85%, its lowest level in two-and-a-half years, and below the Fed’s long-term target of 2%. Meanwhile, wages in December grew at 3.8%, implying an increase in real purchasing power. The spread between the two-year government note and the ten-year yield, a data point often considered a signal of whether monetary policy is on the right track, ended 2025 at its highest level in almost four years, a very positive sign of what may be to come.
Expanding liquidity, economic acceleration and a strengthening labor market could, if they occur, all bode well for our strategies, which continue to favor small- and mid-cap value names that are more sensitive to marginal economic activity and trade at large valuation discounts to the market as a whole. Remember too that Bitcoin, a technology we have exposure to in our portfolios via an investment in Strategy Inc., also historically has often been a major beneficiary of printing press engagement.
As always, we remain the largest investors in our strategies and thank you for your partnership.
Bill Miller IV, CFA, CMT
January 13, 2026