ScottSkyrm.com – The Marginal Effects of QE It’s pretty clear, as QE purchases increases the size of the Fed’s portfolio, some percentage of it gets deposited right back at the Fed as Excess Reserves. Whereas, the Fed has “printed” more than $3.8 trillion by easing quantitatively, over $2 trillion didn’t really go anywhere. Perhaps that’s… Continue reading QE’s Diminishing Effectiveness
Investors.com – Key Sentiment Indicator Flashes Danger Warning The stock market’s impressive summer rally has left investors with nice profits and a smile on their faces. But it’s also made them too optimistic. That was the message from Investors Intelligence, which each Wednesday releases its analysis of the prognostications of more than 100 stock market… Continue reading Too Few Bears?
The Financial Times – Lex: US floating rate debt: take note US government securities with floating rates will soon be available. This at a time when the closest available substitute, “floaters” issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have declined. The Treasury will start by selling $10bn to $15bn of notes in January. The debt… Continue reading The Treasury’s Upcoming Floating Rate Notes
Bloomberg.com – Caroline Baum: Drunk on Debt, U.S. Tells Teetotaler to Sober Up It seems almost laughable for a country that can’t keep its government up and running to criticize other nations, but that’s what the U.S. Treasury did last week in its semiannual report on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies. Of course, the… Continue reading More On The U.S. vs. Germany
MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Why Fannie and Freddie Are Paying Back Uncle Sam A few years ago, the conventional wisdom in Washington said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wouldn’t ever be able make taxpayers whole for the 2008 bailouts of the mortgage-finance giants. Those who haven’t followed the companies closely will be surprised to… Continue reading Fannie & Freddie
MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Why One Woman Is Eager to Buy Twitter Shares On her Tuesday lunch break, Deborah Watkins walked through gray drizzle from her office to the TD Ameritrade in the downtown Loop here to ask about buying some shares of Twitter at the IPO. “I messed up by not buying any Facebook… Continue reading IPO Mania Reaches A Fever Pitch
Project Syndicate – Robert Shiller: Is Economics a Science? One problem with economics is that it is necessarily focused on policy, rather than discovery of fundamentals. Nobody really cares much about economic data except as a guide to policy: economic phenomena do not have the same intrinsic fascination for us as the internal resonances of… Continue reading Economics As A Science
Charts of the Week Topics Covered This Week Include: An Updated Look At Mutual Fund Flows Operating Earnings Growth Expectations Revenue Expectations Will The Fed Lower The Unemployment Threshold In Dec? Shipping Crude Oil By Rail U.S. Policy Uncertainty Index China’s Growth EU 2014 Growth The Largest Mutual Fund On The Planet Is … Housing:… Continue reading Charts of the Week
Comment Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren was interviewed yesterday On CNBC. It was a highly efficient interview as Rosengren highlighted everything that is wrong with the Federal Reserve’s way of thinking and did it in less than four minutes. Well Done! In the interview above, Boston Federal Reserve President said the following: Steve Liesman: Let’s… Continue reading Rosengren’s Thinking Perfectly Shows The Problem With The Federal Reserve
The Wall Street Journal – Jon Hilsenrath: Fed Study: Rate Peg Off Mark The Federal Reserve could help drive down unemployment faster if it promised to keep short-term interest rates near zero for longer than currently envisioned by officials or investors, according to a new research paper by a top central-bank staff member. Since last… Continue reading Driving Down Unemployment
Zero Hedge – Barry Sternlicht Warns “Everyone Is Holding Cash Because They Know When It Ends It’s Gonna Get Ugly” “The Fed is playing a very dangerous game,” Starwood Capital’s Barry Sternlicht warns,”and they need to stop.” Sternlicht has quadrupled his firm’s net worth in this time and, to the incredulity of the CNBC anchors,… Continue reading Will QE End Badly?