Free Republic

Fed’s $4 Trillion Holdings to Boost Growth Beyond End of QEQuantitative easing may turn out to be a gift that keeps on giving for the U.S. economy. As the Federal Reserve prepares to end its third round of bond buying next week, the central bank plans to hang on to the record$4.48 trillion balance sheet it has accumulated since announcing the first round of purchases in November 2008. That will continue to keep a lid on borrowing costs, helping the Fed lift inflation closer to its target and providing support to a five-year expansion facing headwinds abroad, from war in...

European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi announced the launch of an open-ended, expanded monthly 60 billion euro ($70 billion) private and public bond-buying program on Thursday. The long-anticipated introduction of euro zone government bond purchases will bring the ECB's buying program into line with the U.S. Federal Reserve's quantitative easing (QE). The program will be open-ended, lasting until at least 2016, Draghi told reporters at his regular media conference on Thursday, and will start in March this year. The hope is that it will boost the region's painfully low inflation rate, which came in at an annual minus 0.2...

The economic prophet who foresaw the Lehman crisis with uncanny accuracy is even more worried about the world's financial system going into 2015. Beggar-thy-neighbour devaluations are spreading to every region. All the major central banks are stoking asset bubbles deliberately to put off the day of reckoning. This time emerging markets have been drawn into the quagmire as well... "We are in a world that is dangerously unanchored," said William White, the Swiss-based chairman of the OECD's Review Committee. "We're seeing true currency wars and everybody is doing it, and I have no idea where this is going to end."...

Tyler Durden 01/02/2015 It seems like it was only yesterday when we reported that, in yet another slight of hand for the US Treasury and Social Security Administration, US debt rose by $32 billion on the last day of November sending total US debt above $18 trillion for the first time ever. As we further noted, it also meant "that total US debt has increased by 70% under Obama, from $10.625 trillion on January 21, 2009 to $18.005 trillion most recently." Fast forward to today when we are happy to report that according to the US Treasury, America's debt-funded spending...

A wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread. This is what Obama, with his fiscal cliff plan, threatens us with. For many years now we have heard chilling tales about that elusive, powerful and manipulative entity conspiracy theorists have called “The New World Order”. Not only have the members of this group managed for the most part to remain anonymous, but their agenda has remained mysterious and obscure. So much so that many good people have been perfectly fine with ignoring its existence or viability. Whether or not this New World Order is in lockstep with World Communism...

In a normal economic times falling energy costs would be considered unadulterated good news. The facts are simple. No one buys a barrel of oil to display above the mantle. No one derives happiness from a lump of coal. Energy is simply a means to do or get the things that we want. We use it to stay warm, to move from Point A to Point B, to transport our goods, to cook our food, and to power our homes, factories, theaters, offices, and stadiums. If we could do all these things without energy, we would happily never drill a...

(Reuters) - European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has moved closer to launching sovereign debt purchases and data this week will show just how dangerously low inflation has fallen in the $13 trillion euro zone economy. A sickly Europe has held back global economic growth for years, and now it is contributing significantly to powerful forces already dragging down inflation across the globe. A spectacular drop in crude oil prices over the past month will be the center of discussion when ministers from the world's top oil exporters meets in Vienna on Friday.

The Cultural Economist Nov 13, 2014 TCE ( The Cultural Economist) writes: Like other Central Banks, the U. S. Federal Reserve has “printed” copious quantities of money. Despite better GDP numbers and positive media commentary, much of the American economy continues to be lethargic. The Eurozone appears increasingly vulnerable to recession. Financial and geopolitical risks could derail economic growth. What are the long term trends that will shape the outcome? The Case for Inflation Oil As I have documented several times, the rate of inflation is sensitive to the price we pay for a barrel of oil. Political turmoil in...

The week was dominated by news by central banks as the Federal Reserve ended QE and the Bank of Japan pushed its QE program to new heights. The result was another rally in stocks around the globe that made the mini-correction earlier this month seem like a dream (or a nightmare). The question is what happens next, and all indications are that markets will continue to ride the wave of central bank liquidity as far as it takes them. Markets were also boosted by a strong initial third quarter U.S. GDP report showing the economy grew at 3.5% and strong...

Julia La Roche October 31, 2014The Federal Reserve ended quantitative easing this week. And soon it'll start tightening monetary policy with interest rate hikes. This is coming as central banks in the rest of the world maintain loose monetary policy or even go as far as to loosen monetary policy further. All of this is bullish for the US dollar relative to other major currencies. Business Insider recently asked the smartest people in finance for what they considered to be the "most important charts in the world." Without hesitation, former global macro fund manager Raoul Pal sent us a long-term...

Mike Bird October 31, 2014The Nikkei closed up 4.83%, hitting a seven-year high after the Bank of Japan (BoJ) unexpectedly announced it was expanding its monetary easing policy Friday morning. In a tight vote, the BoJ backed an 80 trillion yen ($720 billion) target for expanding the monetary base (a measure of the amount of money held by the central bank and in the economy). That's up from a previous target of 60 trillion to 70 trillion yen. Analysts were basically not expecting anything Friday: this one was a genuine surprise. Just as the Fed this week announced the final...

It appears it is time for some Hillary-Clinton-esque backtracking and Liesman-esque translation of just what the former Federal Reserve Chief really meant. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the Fed chief from 1987 to 2006 says the Fed's bond-buying program fell short of its goals, and had a lot more to add. Mr. Greenspan’s comments to the Council on Foreign Relations came as Fed officials were meeting in Washington, D.C., and expected to announce within hours an end to the bond purchases. He said the bond-buying program was ultimately a mixed bag. He said that the purchases of Treasury and...

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday voted to end the last leg of its bond-buying stimulus program, cutting purchases of Treasury's and mortgage-back securities to zero from $15 billion starting on Nov. 1. The central bank also sounded more upbeat about the labor market and said it doesn't expect falling energy prices to hold inflation down in the long run. For the first time, the Fed explicitly said it could raise interest rates sooner than markets expect if the economy grows faster than the bank projects.

NEW YORK — Soaring inflation. A collapsing dollar. Bubbles in financial markets that would soon pop. One presidential candidate even suggested that the Federal Reserve chairman should be roughed up. Over the past five years, as the Fed has pumped ever-more money into the financial system, critics have warned that it would lead to all kinds of disasters. Yet the central bank kept extending its bond-buying program, known by the wonky name of quantitative easing, or QE. It was an unprecedented effort aimed at lowering borrowing costs, encouraging spending and reviving a dormant economy before it could slip back into...

By Michael Snyder October 26th, 2014 It is widely expected that the Federal Reserve is going to announce the end of quantitative easing this week. Will this represent a major turning point for the stock market? As you will see below, since 2008 stocks have risen dramatically throughout every stage of quantitative easing. But when the various phases of quantitative easing have ended, stocks have always responded by declining substantially. The only thing that caused stocks to eventually start rising again was a new round of quantitative easing. So what will happen this time? That is a very good question....

A toxic brew is bubbling in the housing market that will lead to a mortgage crisis by winter, banking analyst Dick Bove said. Now that the Federal Reserve is nearly done with its monthly bond-buying program, which includes mortgage-backed securities, and Washington continues on its quest to unwind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, conditions could get dicey in the home loan market. Bove envisions a scenario in which long-term financing, like the ubiquitous 30-year mortgage, that has come with fixed interest rates is endangered as mortgage buyers dry up. As part of its quantitative easing program, the Fed had been...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global equity markets edged higher on Monday, boosting a gauge of world stock performance to near an all-time high, as low interest rates bolstered sentiment even as U.S. Treasury yields rose. Wall Street's Dow industrials and benchmark S&P 500 closed at all-time peaks, with the latter rising to its seventh record close in eight trading sessions. Asian stocks earlier touched their highest levels in nearly three years. Europe also advanced as Spain, Italy and Portugal spurred regional indices on bets those markets would benefit most from last week's European Central Bank stimulus measures.

The Fed Could Have Bought California & Texas… or All of China & Japan's Treasuries With QE Money Phoenix Capital Research 05/06/2014 12:31 The Federal Reserve has spent over $3.2 trillion in the post-Crisis era. The bulk of this money printing has gone towards buying garbage mortgage securities or US Treasuries from Wall Street. Because we’ve reached a point in time at which $1 trillion no longer sounds like a lot of money, we thought we’d go through the exercise of assessing just what the Fed could have done with this money besides give it to Wall Street. With $3.2...

KOO: The US Is In A 'QE Trap' And Both The Markets And The Media Are Missing It Joe WeisenthalMar. 26, 2014, 4:48 AM Nomura economist Richard Koo is out with his first comments since Janet Yellen's first FOMC meeting last week. Remember, Yellen briefly spooked markets with what some perceived to be a hawkish tone, mostly owing to the specificity with which she talked about the timing of the first rate hike. According to Koo, the US is in a "QE Trap" and both the market and the media are missing it. This trap, he says, explains the hawkish...

<p>With Bernanke gone, the remaining Fed members knowing full well they will be crucified, metaphorically of course (if not literally) when it all inevitably comes crashing down, are finally at liberty with their words... and the truth is bleeding out courtesy of the president of the Dallas Fed, via Bloomberg.</p>