Blackstone Vice Chairman Byron Wien’s 10 Surprises for 2016 included oil prices down around $30/barrel and only one Fed rate hike—both of which are looking like solid bets right now.
The sanctions lift opened the floodgates to Iranian oil, dropping prices to $28/barrel—the lowest in 12 years—which also helped kick off a drop in equity markets. (And could trickle its way to US real estate.)
Falling oil prices are keeping inflation, a key Fed metric, below its desired 2% mark while November's inflation only hit 0.5%, its highest mark all year.
Fed officials already expressed concern in December about the inflation relative to the rate hike, dropping the probability of the expected four hikes to 4.7%, according to data from CME Group. [SeekingAlpha]
