DUBAI - There is a repeated refrain from the throngs of financiers at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week: Rein in your rate cut expectations.

Everyone from JPMorgan Chase president Daniel Pinto to Standard Chartered Bank group chief executive Bill Winters to Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive Howard Lutnick have said they expect the United States Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy slower than anticipated by the market.

“It doesn’t make sense,” State Street chairman and chief executive Ron O’Hanley said. “The Fed was very clear in their dot plot, and I don’t know why the markets decided to double it and then go to town on that.”

Their caution echoes that of central bankers in recent days, which has already prompted traders to wind back bets on aggressive interest rate cuts in 2024.

Markets now imply 150 basis points of cuts in the United States in 2024, from as much as 166 basis points last week. The chance of a cut in March, once seen as certain, is now just over 50 per cent.

In Europe, it is a similar situation. European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde followed with her own remarks on Jan 17 that market bets are a distraction. “It is not helping our fight against inflation, if the anticipation is such that they are way too high compared with what’s likely to happen,” she said in an interview at Bloomberg House in Davos.

There is still room for nuance. According to Guggenheim Partners Investment Management’s chief investment officer Anne Walsh, rate cuts are coming sooner rather than later to help with a looming recession.

“That’s not exactly the mainstream opinion, but we see a lot of softness in the economy coming ahead,” she said in a Bloomberg Television interview.

“We still see a recession coming,” she added. “As a result, we still see rate cuts and we are actually predicting that they start sooner rather than later.”

Away from monetary policy, executives have voiced views on different topics.

Ms Walsh flagged her concerns about US regional banks, as Mr Pinto indicated JPMorgan expected to boost its headcount in 2024 and Deutsche Bank co-president James von Moltke prepared staff for a tough bonus season. JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon said his personal advice would be to avoid Bitcoin, even as Mr Lutnick vouched for Tether’s reserves. BLOOMBERG