Posted on 12/16/2008 11:35:21 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Fed Cuts Rates to Historic Low
By BRIAN BLACKSTONE and MAYA JACKSON RANDALL
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Federal Reserve officials on Tuesday slashed official interest rates to an historic low range to combat a deepening recession and signaled they will keep rates "exceptionally low" for some time amid rapidly waning price pressures.
Officials also signaled a new phase for policy in which lending programs financed by the Fed's ballooning balance sheet, a process known as quantitative easing, replace the federal funds rate as the Fed's primary policy tool.
The Federal Open Market Committee voted unanimously to reduce the target fed funds rate for interbank lending from 1% to a range of zero to 0.25%, the lowest since the Fed started publishing the funds target in 1990. The market-determined effective fed funds rate already has already hit record lows in recent weeks. (Read the Fed's statement.)
Economists had expected a smaller cut of just 0.5 percentage point, and hadn't envisioned the Fed setting a range.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Hmm, can you explain?
I would think leveraged hard assets (land, buildings, mortgages, gold) are the ideal investments during hyperinflation. Pay off that land with waste paper.
schu
“choppers? Probably more like C-130s”
Maybe he can borrow some An-225 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225) from Ukrain.
The jerks should have raised the rates and washed out all the bad loans and lenders!!!!!
“If they could take it down to 4-4.5% on a 30 year fixed, can you imagine how much money would begin to flow into the economy.”
Hardly any since no one can qualify for a loan and the massive forclosures are just starting.
People living on credit have to be washed out of the system.
Click....Click....Click
Hear that sound folks....that means the Fed is outta ammo....
The next sound you hear is the coming great Crash.
Not necessarily. There have been real equity declines in inflationary environments, and equity increases in deflationary ones.
Equities are only the place to be if you expect capital gains or dividend yields superior to yields from other investments - like bonds, CDs, etc. The combination of massive number of baby-boom retirements coming over the next 20-30 years and the fact that PE ratios are still not substantially below average indicate that capital gains (that is, stock price run-ups) are prob not a realistic expectation for a while. And dividend yields are purely a factor of fundamental company cash flow and profitability.
“The jerks should have raised the rates and washed out all the bad loans and lenders!!!!!”
I agree, and make it easy to raise equity capital. It is crazy to try to refloat the economy by encouraging debt. Our balance sheet is all screwed up we. Tax regs and the punishing costs of raising equity are killing us. We need IPOs not IOUs.
That’s not a bad rate in this environment.
Gotta ask a couple more questions:
- are you deducting your mortgage interest?
- would losing the mortgage interest deduction (if you take it) raise your tax bracket or cause you to lose other deductions?
- do you want to pay this off just to save the interest expense, or to gain the security of owning the property free & clear, etc?
You don’t need to worry about things like a rate adjust, the way ARM borrowers do, your rate wouldn’t go that much lower if you re-fi’ed right now, you’ve already paid a pretty good chunk of the interest you’re going to pay on the note. In this environment, cash is king, and you’d be giving up cash when getting a mortgage to get cash out of a paid-off house isn’t as easy or quick as it used to be... so there’s a consideration that you’re giving up flexibility and investment options to pay down this note.
Thoughts?
Add to all of your reasons the factor of foreign investors pulling their money out of dollar-denominated assets, which would include bonds and stocks.
How did this place get so infested with media victims?
Here is a good article on the German hyperinflation.
Land and gold did less well than necessities like fabric and storable food.
Quote from the article:
Under the forced draft of inflation, business was now operating at feverish speed and unemployment had disappeared. However, the real wages of workers dropped badly. Unions obtained frequent increases, but these could not keep pace. Workers --domestics, farm workers and various white collar groups-- fared especially badly. They had no unions to fight for pay boosts for them, and often they were reduced to hunger. Many people showed visible signs of malnutrition. Skilled workers, writers, artisans and professionals found their wages lagging until they reached the unskilled worker level, which often meant the bare minimum needed to support life.
Businessmen began to abandon their legitimate occupations to speculate in stocks and in goods. Thousands of small businessmen tried to eke out a living by speculating in fabrics, shoes, meat, soap, clothing--in any produce they could obtain. Each fall in the mark brought a rush to the shops. People bought dozens of hats or sweaters.
By mid-1923 workers were being paid as often as three times a day. Their wives would meet them, take the money and rush to the shops to exchange it for goods. However, by this time, more and more often, shops were empty. Storekeepers could not obtain goods or could not do business fast enough to protect their cash receipts. Farmers refused to bring produce into the city in return for worthless paper. Food riots broke out. Parties of workers marched into the countryside to dig up vegetables and to loot the farms. Businesses started to close down and unemployment suddenly soared. The economy was collapsing.
In the early stages of a hyperinflationary crack-up, businesses do very well, but then the economy starts to collapse. A nimble investor should be long commodity-based equities in the early part of a hyperinflation.
Quote:
Investors in German real estate and the German stock market had varied results depending on how they were positioned. Real estate investors who could not quickly increase the rentals received from tenants were bankrupted by higher interest rates and rising property taxes. Others who managed to eliminate their mortgages and had sufficient rental income to meet outgoings survived with anything up to 70% of their real wealth intact.
The situation was similar for stock market investors. Depending on which companies they were invested in, some lost everything and while others managed to retain a modicum or even quite a large proportion of their real wealth. While the stock market indices rose to new peaks denominated in Marks, these indices failed to do so in real terms.
Also, consider the case of Zimbabwe (article)
The benchmark Industrial Index soared 257 percent on Tuesday up from a previous one day record of 241 percent on Monday with some companies seeing share prices increase by up to 3,500 percent.
The government there recently put trading controls in place, which killed the stock market there. But until then it was the best performing market in the world in 2008, even in real terms.
- are you deducting your mortgage interest?YES
- would losing the mortgage interest deduction (if you take it) raise your tax bracket or cause you to lose other deductions?
- do you want to pay this off just to save the interest expense, or to gain the security of owning the property free & clear, etc?
In theory you're correct. The reality though is that equities are extremely risky right now, many are losing literally everything in the market.
Who would have thought a year ago that all of the major Wall St. investment banks would no longer exist, and companies like Circuit City and Linens & Things would disappear. Icon builders like Levitt are toast, with WCI and Tousa probably soon to follow.
I'm guessing that stocks - if they don't sink even further - are going to flatline for quite some time. Too many people, big and small, got badly burned. Confidence and trust is about nill.
If I were to invest in equities at all (which I'm not), it would strictly be "need" stuff (perhaps like consumer staples or commodity types) then only those companies with very low debt along with good cash and assets.
One of the problems with inflation is it distorts company financial ratios and performance. Is the company really growing or is it just raising prices? The company will have more $$ in WIP assets and will need more financing, but its cash position may not have changed. Companies are motivated to produce quickly, because the cost of the marginal unit goes up with time.
The problem with deflation from a company perspective is worse IMHO (at least worse than a "little" inflation). Companies are reluctant to produce because the value of the produced unit sitting in inventory goes down. This becomes a bad cycle, do not produce - lay people off - sales go down - do not product etc.
Hyper inflation is real bad, especially to lenders. A "little" inflation is bad but deflation is catatropic for companies and deflation for the government spells their doom. Inflation for the government is OK as they are a large debtor. That is why the people in control do NOT want deflation but will take a chance on inflation, they think they can control and limit its ultimate effect.
schu
Well, first brilliant thing I can tell you is that as long as your cash is in FDIC-insured banks in quantities of less than $250K, staying in cash is a viable option, even with crappy interest rate returns on the deposits.
Wall Street hucksters have tried to convince everyone that cash is useless and you “should be invested!” and “hold for the long term!” and other such twaddle.
Here’s the hard truth, proven to be true over the last year: staying in cash over the last year looks like a BRILLIANT strategy compared to owning one or more of the following:
1. Stocks.
2. Commodities.
3. Corporate bonds - a favorite of retirement advisers.
4. Corporate preferred stock - another fave of retirement advisers.
5. Real property, especially in urbanized areas with high price run-ups in the last five years.
6. Agency bonds.
In other words, as of right now, the fews asset that are doing better than having stayed in cash over the last year is if you owned Treasury bonds or bills that you bought last spring, OR you currently own muni bonds. If you own those instruments, you’re sitting on a tidy capital gain potential, if you choose to sell them right now.
If you own muni bonds in any one of a number of basket-case states (pick any one infested with free-spending Democrat governments and if they have an exploding budget deficit, you have a basket case - CA, NJ, NY, et al), those might show a good return relative to a past purchase price this past spring, but they’re living on borrowed time and the sands of the hourglass are running out.
What I’m trying to lay out to you is that having a whole lot of cash on hand right now, in this environment, makes you a genius investor in the top 5 or even 2% of investors out there. At some point in the future, that will change, but right now, cash (FDIC-insured cash) is king.
If you use cash to pay down a mortgage with a reasonable interest cost right now, you would be getting back the interest expenses in the future, but you’re also potentially giving away liquidity & investment/purchase options in the near to medium future that might be difficult to regain - ie, should you ever need that cash, or even just a piece of it, you might find in the future that mortgaging the house for the same amount of cash you put in isn’t easy and doesn’t carry the same rate.
Right now, the investing (as opposed to trading) environment is about like going into a room and a guy is standing there with a big set of boots on. He asks you “Would you like a chance to double your money? There’s a possibility you’ll lose half to all of it, and I’ll kick you square in the nuts on top of your loss... or you can turn around and just walk away.”
You look around at all the people curled up in a fetal position, groaning and holding their groins. And you choose to turn around and walk away.
Compared to everyone else in the room... you look pretty suave right about now...
Other than that, cash looks great.
For you, you have a sufficient amount to pay off the note if you wish. You have a fixed rate note, which means you have a secure estimate of future cash flow needs. I’m guessing if you want to pay it off that you’re planning on living there for awhile longer. Right now, your pile of cash looks pretty good in comparison to a whole host of really silly things most all investment “professionals” would have told you to do with that money in the last year.
5
I only meant that the economy is still spiraling downward and the pace of losses, layoffs, and bankruptcies has been much faster than I ever would have imagined. The economy is going downhill fast. That is what I meant. The government is desperately trying to stop the plunge in economic activity and so far nothing is working to stem the tide. Not that it might in the future.
My husband was laid off from a six figure job two weeks ago—the first layoff for either one of us (we are both around 40).
He just got a possible offer for a job making what he made 10 years ago, five figures, but will definitely take it if the offer becomes real.
Luckily I work P/T, and was carrying the health insurance, and I immediately doubled my hours. Also we have savings and no debt (other than 7 yrs left on a mortgage) and are very frugal. Also lucky we work in very different fields.
But this is still very, very scary—we have 4 kids—and I really miss staying at home with my 3 year old and picking up the others from school. . .
I have been getting calls from several of my banks(BoA/WellsFargo) about investment options this year lol. I passed.
Would you allow me to ask a few more questions?
Generally, is it better to pay down mortgages during inflationary period, or during a recession/depression? Which investment types go with which cycles better? (ie Stocks/bonds vs hard assets)
Thank you kindly for your perspective! While I've listened to my financial advisers over the years, I tend to distrust their motivations, and hedge my bets.
yes... this pisses me off to no end.
Screw those that lived beyond their means... I’m sick of these leeches!
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.