Free Republic

As the US Treasury 2-year yield hits 2.507% (up from 0.128% when Biden was installed as President) and the number of Fed rate hikes over by February 2023 hits 9.6, Bankrate’s 30-year mortgage rate breached the 5% mark at 5.04%. The most recent data from on existing home sales show YoY sales in negative territory as The Fed begins in monetary fireball tightening. The Fed’s minutes from the most recent meeting indicates that The Fed will shedding $95 billion a month from it swollen balance sheet. At almost $9 trillion mostly populated by Treasuries will be the first asset to...

Federal Reserve officials agreed to shrink the central bank’s balance sheet by a maximum of $95 billion each month, minutes from the March meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee revealed on Wednesday. Fed officials in March hiked the target for overnight lending and the interest paid on reserves by a quarter of a percentage point, to a range of 0.25 to 0.5 percent. The minutes released Wednesday revealed previously undisclosed details about the Fed’s plans to shrink its enormous stockpile of bond holdings.

Jay “The Revelator” Powell has told us in The Fed minutes that The Fed is ready to raise rates and shrink the balance “soon.” Sort of like saying “Shock and Awe” is coming. The minutes of the recent Fed Open Market Committee (FOMC) have been released. Yet they only mention “soon.” Just like when my wife asks me to take out the trash and I reply “soon.” At which point she realizes that I have no intention of doing it. The REAL 10-year Treasury yield is now -5.44%. And the 30-year mortgage rate has risen to 4.23% while the REAL...

Today the Fed released minutes of meetings at the start and during the great financial crisis. These minutes show how clueless the Fed Governors were at the start of the recession. Here is a list of FOMC Transcripts and Other Historical Materials, 2008 Notes I purposely cherry picked statements of various Fed governors. There was much more gloom in the early minutes than I show below. Yet, the consensus opinion, even though the recession had already started, was that a recession would be avoided.Amazingly, Bernanke spoke of pent-up demand for housing in January of 2008The January 29-30 transcript was a...

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will have a Q&A following the release on the Fed’s FOMC minutes today at 2pm EST. Here are the minutes. Quick summary of the last FOMC meeting: half the voting members want to stop asset purchases later this year. The other half, wait for improving economic conditions. The reaction in the 10 year Treasury yield? t10reaction But prior to his Q&A session, the 10 year Treasury auction went off as expected. trreas10yraux The 10 Year High Yield continues to climb. ust10ihg The 30 year auction is tomorrow. Stay tuned!