The catalyst for today’s rally is the rumor that the Obama Administration is in the process of putting together a bad bank proposal to buy up bad assets from financial institutions. The financials are crushing today with the XLF up…
This is sick. This is some kind of cartoon version of real life. The Fed today cut the Fed Funds rate to a range of 0%-0.25%. In the statement, they basically said they will do anything, ANYTHING, to promote economic…
With the Fed slashing the funds rate to 1% today, it’s worth remembering what happened the last time they did this: We got the most massive housing bubble in the history of mankind. Well, today, in the midst of this…
As expected, the Fed today cut the funds rate 50 basis points from 1.5% to 1.0%. But I don’t think enough attention is being paid to the statement. The Fed appears to me to have completely sold out their concern…
The CPFF [Commercial Paper Funding Facility] will provide a liquidity backstop to U.S. issuers of commercial paper through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that will purchase three-month unsecured and asset backed commercial paper directly from eligible issuers. – FOMC Statement on…
Lehman’s bankruptcy filing in the early hours of Monday, Sept. 15, sparked a chain reaction that sent credit markets into disarray. It accelerated the downward spiral of giant U.S. insurer American International Group Inc. and precipitated losses for everyone from…
The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday, with the full support of the Treasury Department, authorized the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend up to $85 billion to the American International Group (AIG) under section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve…
In retrospect, the Fed’s decision to hold interest rates steady seems obvious. They can’t give in to every little fear and panic in the markets and print money just to make everybody feel good. They have to show some backbone,…
Today, for the 2nd consecutive meeting, the Federal Reserve kept the federal funds rate at 2%. The statement seems to indicate the risks are balanced between growth and inflation and that, therefore, the Fed is on pause for the foreseeable…
Every weekend I write a client note in which I attempt to summarize the week’s action and highlight significant events. As I was writing it last night I was struggling to make sense of the huge selloff we saw last…