Posted on 03/15/2020 2:12:17 PM PDT by billyboy15
The Federal Reserve, saying “the coronavirus outbreak has harmed communities and disrupted economic activity in many countries, including the United States,” cut interest rates to zero on Sunday and launched a massive $700 billion quantitative easing program to shelter the economy from the effects of the virus.
Facing highly disrupted financial markets, the Fed also slashed the rate of emergency lending at the discount window for banks by 125 bps to 0.25%, and lengthened the term of loans to 90 days.
The Fed also cut reserve requirement ratios for thousands of banks to zero. In addition, in a global coordinated move by centrals banks, the Fed said the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank took action to enhance dollar liquidity around the world through existing dollar swap arrangements.
The banks lowered the rate on these swap line loans and extended the period for such loans. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is scheduled to hold a press conference via telephone at 6 pm eastern time. The actions by the Fed appeared to be the largest single day set of moves the bank had ever taken, mirroring in many ways its efforts during the financial crisis that were rolled out over several months.
The quantitative easing will take the form of $500 billion of treasuries and $200 billion of agency-backed mortgage securities. The Fed said the purchases will begin Monday with a $40 billion installment.
The Fed cut rates to a new range of 0% to 0.25% from 1% to 1.25% and said it would remain there “until it is confident that the economy has weathered recent events and is on track to achieve its maximum employment and price stability goals.”
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
This whole situation IS FISHY!!
Trump's biggest weakness is monetary policy - he seems clueless about it!
Here goes the Fed, monetizing 700 billion in government debt today. Just what the HELL??!
Any disruption would be trivial compared to would happen if the markets drop another 20-30%.
Thank God, won’t somebody please think of the big banks?
This isn’t going to work. I don’t see how you successfully manipulate the markets while shutting down the economy at the consumer level. What happens when horrid numbers are reported over the next few months? You think the bankers are going to care about this QE? Not a bit. A lot of bankers are going to get rich and the slide to recession will continue.
Time to buy a larger mattress.
We have a lot of cash. Too much. At which point will we be charged to keep it at a credit union or bank?
The President said, Do this. They did.
You are going to have to beat me to those pop cans - and I move fast!
Negative rates coming
Home loan mortgages also. I am curious to see what this does to rates. Demand for homes is influenced by many things so how this affects the housing market I have not tried to think thru.
Who is going to buy a house when they can’t go to a restaurant? Nobody.
Geez, not smart.
This won’t work.
It’s pushing on a string.
If the supply chain is disrupted, capital spending is suspended, and the consumer is only buying toilet paper....what are you going to spend this “free” money on?
I am a capitalist, but financial panics are the forest fires that clear out the deadwood. If the Fed keeps propping stuff up, it will never go through the crucible it needs so badly.
This crap just puts off the fire sale.
Hang tight, it will be back. I have some pretty substantial house renovations that have to be done but I’m not touching a dime until all after this is all over.
The markets threw off the recent Fed actions in an hour or less.
The markets may sleep in tomorrow morning.
St. Paddy Day Partying can be tough on one.
Stock futures open for trading in 30 minutes. So we will see what the early impact is.
They must have been very worried about Monday’s open on Wall Street. When the country with the world reserve currency goes to zero on rates, look out....”unintended consequences”/bad things may follow.
How much money do you take out of the market every month? Closing for a month wouldn’t bother me at all.
too, 2, etc.
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