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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve extended its support for a slowing U.S. economy on Wednesday, sounding a bit less optimistic about growth and saying it will keep buying $85 billion in bonds per month for the time being. In announcing the widely expected decision, Fed officials nodded to weaker economic prospects due in part to a fiscal fight in Washington that shuttered much of the government for 16 days earlier this month. The Fed indicated the recovery in housing had lost some steam, while noting some reversal in a recent spike in borrowing costs. "Available data suggest that household...

The next Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting in on October 30th, a preview of Halloween. Despite the lack of evidence of positive growth in the economy, The Fed will likely keep on printing. Two of The Fed’s tools in its arsenal are the Fed Funds rate and longer-term asset purchases (aka, quantitative easing). So, what is the record on the employment front with regard to Fed policies? Let’s take a look. Here is a chart of the unemployment rate (white line) compared to the Fed Funds Target rate (gold) and The Fed’s Balance Sheet (longer-term asset purchases). u3fedpol2 So...

The Federal Open Market Committee meets in the coming week to discuss monetary policy after the 16-day U.S. government shutdown took at least $24 billion out of the economy. The Federal Reserve is likely to delay lowering its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases until March, according to a Bloomberg survey. Sorry to break this to you, but the downward trend has been building since 2000. Here is a chart of The Fed’s balance sheet (white line) which has been growing rapidly since late 2008. The other indicators: 1. the 10 year Treasury yield (green): it has been falling steadily...

According to the National Association of Realtors, existing home sales fell and fell by the most since June 2012. ehssep13 And now for the bad news. Home affordability plunged to the lowest level since the end of 2008, and the beginning of The Fed’s quantitative easing (QE1) program. haffor102113 Of course, increasing home prices coupled with rising mortgage rates will put a damper on affordability. While the Freddie Mac Mortgage survey rate is still lower than it was at the end of 2008, house prices (using CoreLogic’s home price index) are higher than at the end of 2008. loanhpfreddieinded We...

The US dollar hit 8-1/2-month low on worries about U.S. economy, the headline blares. usdeur101913 True, but the USDEUR rate took its biggest beating during the 2002-2008 period. But since the latter half of 2008, the dollar has been floating around in a relatively narrow band (although it seems larger on a day-to-day basis). bfmB3 And if we look at a longer term pictures of the US dollar spot rate (DXY), we see the Reagan economic recovery and asset bubble and then the Clinton/Bush economic recovery and asset bubble. dxy1960s But the asset bubble that followed the Clinton economic growth...

President Obama has now officially announced his intention to nominate Janet Yellen, current vice chair of the Federal Reserve, to succeed current chair Ben Bernanke. And while Yellen is likely to receive a frosty reception from Republicans, she has a very good chance of garnering the necessary 60 votes needed to achieve Senate confirmation. She will of course break new ground as the first female head of the Fed, but will also sadly represent a continuation of the Fed’s current policies and long history of repeated failures. If you’ve made a fortune riding the various Fed-induced asset bubbles, Yellen...

Federal Reserve chair nominee Janet Yellen Wednesday suggested that she will put a renewed emphasis on “jobs” in her role as Chairwoman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. President Obama nominated Yellen, a vice chairwoman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and former president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, to run the U.S. central bank Wednesday. If confirmed by the Senate, Yellen will become the first woman to run the Fed in its hundred-year history. Yellen is expected to accelerate the devaluation of the dollar by continuing or even expanding the...

Here is an interesting idea from UBS interest rate strategists Mike Schumacher and Boris Rjavinski. It is called “super premium Treasuries.” Here is how it works. 1. The U.S. government takes in $277 billion in tax revenues each month, and spends $452 billion each month, for a monthly deficit of around $175 billion. 2. It also has, on average, call it $100 billion of Treasury notes coming due each month. Instead of just rolling those Treasuries — paying them off at 100 cents on the dollar by issuing new Treasuries at 100 cents on the dollar — it should pay...

President Barack Obama will nominate Federal Reserve vice chair Janet Yellen to succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the nation’s central bank, the White House said Tuesday. Yellen would be the first woman to head the powerful Fed, taking over at a pivotal time for the economy and the banking industry. … Yellen emerged as the leading candidate after Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary whom Obama was thought to favor, withdrew from consideration last month in the face of rising opposition. Yellen, 67, would likely continue steering Fed policy in the same direction as Bernanke. A close ally of...

Ben S. Bernanke, the world’s most-powerful central banker, says he doesn’t understand gold prices. If his peers had paid attention, they might have stopped expanding reserves that lost $545 billion in value since bullion peaked in 2011. Bernanke, who holds economics degrees from Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and led the Federal Reserve through the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression, told the Senate Banking Committee in July that “nobody really understands gold prices and I don’t pretend to really understand them either.” Central banks, which own 18 percent of all the gold ever mined, will...

In 64 A.D., in a naïve attempt to deceive the populace, Nero decreased the silver content in the coins and made silver and gold coins slightly smaller ... central planners have been clipping coins and devaluing the The People’s hard-earned currency for at least two thousand years. The Roman Emperor Nero of course devalued the Roman currency for the first time in the Empire’s history. What was it that gave both the Roman and Ottoman Empires the audacity to plunder the purchasing power of their people? After 200 years of operating as an independent bank, what made the British Empire...

The markets were stunned by The Fed’s decision last week not to begin tapering. Investors reacted … like deer in the headlights. deerheads Take the Dow Jones Industrial Average. After initial optimism on The Fed’s “No Taper” message, it has turned down. djiapostfomce The 10 year Treasury yield dropped with The Fed announcement and has continued to drift downwards. ust10postfomc As would be expected, both mortgage rates (yellow) and the Fannie Mae 30 year current coupon rate have drifted downwards. mtgratepostfomc Gold? Gold prices surged initially but had drifted downwards to about pre-announcement levels. goldpostfomc The good news? Both the...

Poor Larry Summers. He withdrew his candidacy as the Federal Reserve Board Chairman over fears of a brutal Senate confirmation hearing. Now we are left with former University of California labor economist Janet Yellen as the leading candidate. Yellen was (allegedly) the architect of the quantitative easing programs to reduce unemployment (better known as the weak money rally). And Yellen is the darling of the labor unions because of her activist policies on labor. “The philosophy of Janet Yellen is activism of government policy to achieve objectives,” said Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics Inc. Oh great. We have activist...

There was a time, long ago, when some still believed the myth that the Federal Reserve, and the selection of its Chairman, were supposed to be apolitical and impartial. Luckily, that was a long time ago, because otherwise some may question not only the logic, but the motives, behind what the media reports is an aggressive push by White House officials to "muster support among Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee to back Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen," according to Reuters which cited three sources said on Friday, laying the groundwork for her expected nomination to the Fed's top...

The billionaire investor spoke one day after the central bank surprised investors by postponing its expected wind-down of monetary stimulus, which has in five years more than tripled the Fed's balance sheet to above $3.6 trillion. "Since the panic of five years ago, he's done a terrific job," Buffett said on CNBC television in a joint interview with Brian Moynihan, chief executive of Bank of America Corp. Asked if he would reappoint Bernanke when his term expires, Buffett said: "That's what I would do." Nevertheless, at an event later Thursday afternoon at Georgetown University, Buffett said that the Fed's eventual...

Steen Jakobsen, Chief economist at Saxo Bank in Denmark, pinged me today with his thoughts on "the morning after" and "price discovery". In my opinion these two paragraphs of the FOMC Statement are the key ones: The Committee sees the downside risks to the outlook for the economy and the labor market as having diminished, on net, since last fall, but the tightening of financial conditions observed in recent months, if sustained, could slow the pace of improvement in the economy and labor market. The Committee recognizes that inflation persistently below its 2 percent objective could pose risks to economic...

Chairman Bernanke: “We could raise interest rates in 15 minutes if we have to. So there really is no problem with raising rates, tightening monetary policy, slowing the economy, reducing inflation at the appropriate time. Now that time is not now.”Scott Pelley, CBS 60 Minutes: “You have what degree of confidence in your ability to control this?” “100%.”* * *No doubt that exchange of 2010 will go down as the most famous of Mr. Bernanke’s tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve. It is the context in which to savor — if that is the word — the news...

Bernanke’s surprise (NO TAPER) resulted in a large decline in the 10 year Treasury yield yesterday and a small rebound today. ust10091913 But despite the surprise, the yield curve has declined only slightly compared to its increase after May 1st. yc091813 World bond markets are in a sea of green, particularly the UK and Italy. Even beleaguered Greece dropped 21 basis points in 10 year sovereign yield. wbm091913 Precious metals (gold, silver) soared on The Fed’s Taper bluff. goldsilvfed2 To quote The Who, “We won’t get fooled again!”

Clearly, The Fed is worried about the moribund housing recovery and lack of mortgage purchase applications. The Fed held firm and fooled many investors by NOT beginning the taper yesterday. Borrowing costs for U.S. homebuyers are poised to extend declines from the highest level in two years after the Federal Reserve unexpectedly refrained from slowing its debt buying and bolstered expectations for how long it will keep short-term interest rates at about zero percent. A Bloomberg index of Fannie Mae securities that guide 30-year loan rates dropped about 0.2 percentage point yesterday, the most since last September, to 3.39 percent,...

Ben Bernanke just pulled the biggest fake out in the history of the market. Now he and the Fed will have to pay for it. The Federal Reserve's exit from its bond-buying experiment in monetary policy was never going to be pretty. It just got a lot messier. If you were watching the market on Wednesday afternoon, you might have gotten the impression that the Fed made another great move. The Dow shot up over 150 points on news that the Fed was not in fact going to pull back on its bond purchases. But if you were watching Ben...