Federal Reserve makes emergency rate cut

MSNBC ^ | 01.22.08

[Perdogg]

Federal Reserve makes emergency rate cut.

[montag813]

Won’t this signal of panic cause more harm than good at this time?

That is the big question. Right now the cut has had little effect. Dow futures initially spiked 200 points, but now they are back down only +50 from before the cut. That is BAAAAD.

[cake_crumb]

"What's sad is that there is such a creature."

Yes, and they've really been crawling out of the little cracks in the woodwork lately, too.

[Post-Neolithic]

"my nephew is buying a house and had locked in on a rate - hopefully they will now give him the lower one."

As I understand it, this cut will not help us poor slobs. Might filter down to us but I highly doubt it.

[montag813]

We’ll see whether it works. I don’t like the fact that this Fed seems to do little other than react to the daily swings in the stock markets.

And the last Fed in 2004 urged Americans to take out ARMs and urged lenders to relax loan qualifications. That didn't work out too well either. Perhaps it's time to scrap it altogether.

[Just mythoughts]

Nor any SPENDING cuts. Go figure!!

True, Congress and by extension US are so laden with earmarks our lobes are dragging the ground.

[DCPatriot]

Geesh....the rate cut by the fed has absolutely NOTHING to do with long term [mortgage] interest rates.

The bond market drives the mortgage market.

[Victor]

You seem to have some market savvy. My 401K is heavily into global stocks, about a 70-30 mix.

Should I re-balance at this time for more domestic stuff? Or just ride it out...?

Thanks to my Freeper friends

[pieceofthepuzzle]

“An appearance of panic in the face of the enemy.”

I agree. global economics is a very high stakes battle, and we just blinked. If Bernanke and company thought we needed this, they should have done it in a couple of installments with less fanfare. I recently saw a picture of Bernanke on the cover of some magazine, posing. It doesn’t sit well with me that he would do that, especially in our current economic climate.

[Timeout]

Good analysis. I think it’s also very likely foreign central banks will follow this move. They don’t want a weaker dollar.

I think there’s still time to get ahead of this “panic”. If I were a trader, I’d be buying.

[Just mythoughts]

And the last Fed in 2004 urged Americans to take out ARMs and urged lenders to relax loan qualifications. That didn't work out too well either. Perhaps it's time to scrap it altogether.

And these Fed back ARMers were pushing anybody and everybody to sign on their dotted line. Nobody but nobody was going to get LEFT BEHIND.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

Good thing I have an SUV as my secondary vehicle. Might need it to haul the dough for a bread and milk run sometime in the future.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

Apparently, the word has no real meaning anymore.

[RDTF]

get your milk from Venezuela!

[sageb1]

“Good time to refi my mortgage??”

We’re paying ours off today. Yay!

[shuckmaster]

Won’t this signal of panic cause more harm than good at this time?

Yes! Printing more money during an economic panic is always a very dumb idea.

[cake_crumb]

"What recession?"

Amazingly like the Quagmire in Iraq, innit? Making it look like we're all gonna be homeless and starve benifits the Democrat presidential candidates. IMO that is 100% of the media hysteria mongering.

[Bogie]

This is a bad situation. No easy answers for sure. But it seems as though the band-aid is creating as many problems as it hopes to solve.

A carefully thought out approach to the economy is in order.

[doug from upland]

Here’s hoping it can help the housing industry, a leading indicator of our economy.

[shuckmaster]

Time to refinance the mortgage!

You should have done that when the rate was 1%

[Timeout]

Why BAAAAD?!

All we’ve heard for the last 24 hours is how our markets would PLUNGE today...all doom and gloom. May still happen, but I don’t see it right now.

The +50 figure reflected that analysts anticipated a move by the Fed and probably figured it would come early...as has now happened. In other words, the cut was already factored into the futures market.

If world central banks follow the Fed, I hope things will settle down. We’re not out of the woods, but we’re not completely in them either.