Did the Fed try to talk down stocks yesterday? Push Congress into action? Both, I think
The gaggle of Federal Reserve speakers opining on the economy and the coronavirus recession yesterday amounted to a full court press on stock prices and Congressional inaction on the coronavirus recession. The Fed could force Wall Street banks to cut dividends by...
Federal Reserve puts its corporate-bond-buying vehicle in motion
On March 23, the Federal Reserve announced that it would create a facility to buy corporate bunds and ETFs tracking the corporate bond market. That facility remained an all-talk/no-action vehicle until today when the New York Federal Reserve Bank announced that its...
The Fed speaks and speaks and speaks this week: Will all the words push Congress on more spending for coronavirus rescue?
Due to a quirk in the Federal Reserve calendar, the central bank doesn't meet in May. (Next meeting June 10; last meeting April 29.) That means the Fed has lots of time to jawbone the financial markets and Congress in an effort to get Washington to provide more fiscal...
Saturday Night Quarterback says (on a Sunday), For the week ahead expect…
... the "No, you do it" game being played by the Federal Reserve and the Republican-controlled Senate to increase in intensity. Senator Mitch McConnell and the Republican majority in the Senate have said that they don't want to even consider another coronavirus rescue...
Trick or trend: Benchmark dates for the economy and the pandemic for the next month or two
Our regular (or occasional or perhaps occasionally regular) Friday series (actually running on Saturday this week) Trick or Trend looks at what might (or might not) be emerging investible trends. Exclusively on JAM. This post won't run anywhere else. Ever. Right now...
Another reason stocks are rallying? A belief in negative interest rates by early 2021
The Fed funds futures market, which trades bets on where the Federal Reserve's benchmark interest rates are headed, has rallied this week to send prices for futures contracts in early 2021 above 100. Above 100 traders are pricing in negative interest rates from the...
So what did the Fed’s Clarida say that so disturbed the stock market on Tuesday?
One minute the Standard & Poor's was sailing along, up 1.91% at 3 p.m. New York time. And the next minute stocks were trending downward with the S&P 500 up only 0.75% at 3:42 p.m. The index closed ahead 0.90% for the day. What happened? Federal Reserve Vice...
Fed keeps policy stable, says 0% rates as far as the eye can see
As expected the Federal Reserve left interest rates at their current level of 0%-0.25%. And there were very few changes in the central bank's language. But a few subtle shifts are worth noting, I believe. The Fed said in early April that “We have also committed to...
What if the helicopter trillions don’t work this time?
Drop money from the sky. Lots and lots of it. Enough to shock a struggling economy out of a deep slump. Milton Friedman coined the term. In Friedman's scenario the helicopters appear unexpectedly ( I don't know if they play Wagner) and just dump money on the economy....
Are we headed into an era of longterm deflation? Will the Fed say it’s worried about deflation after tomorrow’s meeting?
As long as I can remember (which is only back about 40 years when it comes to the economy) the worry has been inflation. From the stagflation of the late 1970s, to Paul Volcker's brutal but successful assault on inflation in the early 1980s, to the seemingly endless...
Why McConnell’s idea to let states and cities go bankrupt is great–if you want to make the coronavirus recession worse
I'll bet Mitch McConnell has Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell tearing his hair out. McConnell has repeatedly said in recent days that he's opposed to any plan to provide $500 billion or so of Federal (that is taxpayer money) to state and city governments who are...Jim’s Stock Alerts
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