Posted on 08/10/2004 11:15:32 AM PDT by RWR8189
In the second tightening of US monetary policy since May of 2000, Alan Greenspan and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised the Federal Funds Rate target 25 basis points to 1.50%, as expected.
More...
DJIA +81.57 9,896.23
NASDAQ +19.27 1,793.91
S&P 500 +7.28 1,072.50
Economy can't be doing that bad for the rates to be raised.
that will be the last one until 2005.
At least one more...I think.
The market has already assumed this increase. Hopefully this will be the last increase before the election. Now we only have to worry about the cost of oil dragging us down and not Greenspan (Mr. Andrea Mitchell) too.
It will be interesting to watch the press spin the rate hike (required to slow the expansion) while claiming that the expansion is going too slow, though...
5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires
The Bush recovery. CONFIRMED.
It may have been expected, but with oil soaring I think it's premature.
agreed
What it means is that Greenspan does not believe the 32 K new jobs. On the other hand if the figure of 600 000 + jobs is true, and the news of the very large productivity increase (but also increase in production costs) then this raise is probably needed.
As you say it is going to be interesting to watch the media and their poodle-economists spin this. Stagflation maybe??
after the first bump, one of our loans actually went down, the other has stayed in place so far at a tick under 4%.
The composite rate for both is right around 4.50% or so..
Oh Yeah. Im voting for Hairy Kerry for sure now... (/sarcasm)
lol
so the thief is only stealing 2.5% on cash holders, not 2.75%.
It's about time....
The Economy
Rasmussen Index
Updated daily by 8:00 AM Eastern
Last Update: Tuesday
Click for Details
Consumer Index 116.8
¥ 0.1
Investor Index 135.0
¥ 3.1
http://rasmussenreports.com/
Ok, "soft spot". Means absolutely nothing, but sounds vaguely discomfortable :)
Interesting to watch, but uninformative. The mainstream news media has deteriorated to such a point that now they just throw random theories up against the wall to see if anything sticks as if they are all crazed spaghetti chefs.
A more rational approach to explaining this sort of rate rise might touch on the Fed's view of the declining Dollar and rising oil prices, however.
5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires
Speaking of markets, did anyone see the guy from Intrade interviewed on Cavuto (where is he, by the way?) yesterday? They have a system whereby investors bid on, for example, who will become President and they've got W by 52%. They also covered the Edwards nomination in April.
Well , Alan looks like an old softie, if ya ask me. ;-)
Why are these rate hikes usually "25 basis points"? That sounds like a throwback to green eyeshades and comptometers. With computers and decimal expressions, why not 14, 19, or 22 basis points? Why isn't the tuning finer?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.