Free Republic

The Fed’s Dot Plot, the Open Market Committee’s guesses as to Fed rate policy in the future, despite Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying everything is beautiful in the US economy. Then Janet, why is The FOMC siganling a rate cut from 5.6% to 3.6% by 2025? The Federal Reserve’s dot plot for September will push back on the notion of aggressive rate cuts that the markets are pricing in for next year. The median of indications will show that policymakers expect a decline in the benchmark rate of as little as 50 basis points or 75 basis points for 2024,...

Fears of further Fed tightening continue to weigh on metals markets. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve released the minutes from its most recent policy meeting. As CNBC reported, central bankers remain fixated on inflation. CNBC Reporter: The minutes of the latest Fed meetings show that officials agreed that another rate hike of 50-75 basis points would likely be appropriate at its meeting later this month. Officials also acknowledge that there could be an even more restrictive stance that could be appropriate if inflation remains high. Now, the minutes show that Fed officials were worried about inflation becoming entrenched, that was...

St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said Friday the central bank should continue to ease monetary policy because of the recession signal being flashed by the bond market. “The yield curve is inverted here. We’ve got one of the higher rates on the yield curve here. That’s not a good place to be,” Bullard told CNBC’s Steve Liesman. The so-called yield-curve inversion refers to the 10-year Treasury yield trading below its 2-year counterpart. This briefly happened earlier this week and last week. Experts fear a yield-curve inversion because it has historically preceded a recession.

*** The bond market is taking on the Fed, betting the Fed is mistaken in its view that it does not need to cut rates very much, strategists say. *** The market is betting inflation will be much lower than the Fed expects it will be, and that will force the Fed to keep cutting rates. *** Stunning moves across the Treasury curves sent yields sharply lower, and the benchmark 10-year yield was edging toward a 3-year low, while stocks rose sharply in response. The bond market is bent on having its way and is now pricing in a Fed...

With almost no inflation, our Country is needlessly being forced to pay a MUCH higher interest rate than other countries only because of a very misguided Federal Reserve. In addition, Quantitative Tightening is continuing, making it harder for our Country to compete. As good as we have done, it could have been soooo much better. Interest rate costs should have been much lower, & GDP & our Country’s wealth accumulation much higher. Such a waste of time & money. Also, very unfair that other countries manipulate their currencies and pump money in! It is far more costly for the Federal...

Strong jobs report, low inflation, and other countries around the world doing anything possible to take advantage of the United States, knowing that our Federal Reserve doesn’t have a clue! They raised rates too soon, too often, & tightened, while others did just the opposite.... ....As well as we are doing from the day after the great Election, when the Market shot right up, it could have been even better - massive additional wealth would have been created, & used very well. Our most difficult problem is not our competitors, it is the Federal Reserve!

*** Steve Forbes: Great news that @realDonaldTrump plans to nominate the brilliant @judyshel to Federal Reserve Board. She will ask hard questions. She is stout foe of nonsense idea that prosperity causes inflation. *** Judy Shelton: I will indeed, Steve. You’re an inspiration. Productive economic growth, which leads to higher levels of output, justifies wage gains. It is not inflationary @SteveForbesCEO https://twitter.com/judyshel/status/1146540713645154305 _______________________________________________________________________________ *** Stephen Moore: Judy Shelton is a champion of sound money and a stable currency. She understands growth does not cause inflation, and is a great choice for the Fed. https://twitter.com/StephenMoore/status/1146403319306424320 _______________________________________________________________________________ *** Judy Shelton: Artificially suppressed/elevated...

While speaking at a meeting of Japanese business leaders in Tokyo, Trump said the stock market would be anywhere between 7,000 to 10,000 points higher if the U.S. central bank had chosen to keep interest rates steady. He also suggested that the growth rate in the U.S. would have exceeded 3 percent. "But they wanted to raise interest rates," he said. "You’ll explain that to me." Trump, despite hand-picking Chairman Jerome Powell more than a year ago, has been a frequent critic of the Fed, often urging policymakers to cut interest rates from the current target range of 2.25 percent...

If the Fed had done its job properly, which it has not, the Stock Market would have been up 5000 to 10,000 additional points, and GDP would have been well over 4% instead of 3%...with almost no inflation. Quantitative tightening was a killer, should have done the exact opposite!

Had the Fed not mistakenly raised interest rates, especially since there is very little inflation, and had they not done the ridiculously timed quantitative tightening, the 3.0% GDP, & Stock Market, would have both been much higher & World Markets would be in a better place!

Inflation and other economic signals justify interest-rate caution. If you think your job is tough, consider Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. He’s signaled for months that the Fed will raise interest rates again this week, but economic and financial signals suggest he should pause. Meanwhile, Donald J. Trump is beating him up almost daily not to raise rates. What to do? The right answer is to ignore the politics, inside and outside the Fed, and follow the signals that suggest a prudent pause in raising rates...

I hope the people over at the Fed will read today’s Wall Street Journal Editorial before they make yet another mistake. Also, don’t let the market become any more illiquid than it already is. Stop with the 50 B’s. Feel the market, don’t just go by meaningless numbers. Good luck!

It is incredible that with a very strong dollar and virtually no inflation, the outside world blowing up around us, Paris is burning and China way down, the Fed is even considering yet another interest rate hike. Take the Victory!

Federal Reserve officials, amid signs that the U.S. economy soon could shed its long period of stagnation, approved the first interest rate hike in a year Wednesday and said it foresees three more increases next year. The stock market reacted calmly, while the dollar and bond yields rose.

U.S. equity markets were lower Monday morning as traders anxiously awaited this week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting. As of 9:50 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 81 points, or 0.50% to 16350. The S&P 500 shed 8 points, or 0.45% to 1952, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 16 points, or 0.33% to 4806. Today’s Markets Wall Street waited with bated breath for the outcome of the Federal Reserve’s two-day, policy-setting meeting this week, which begins Wednesday and ends with a statement on monetary policy the day after. In recent weeks, forecasts for a September rate hike have...

Something stunning took place earlier this week, and it quietly snuck by, unnoticed by anyone as the "all important" FOMC meeting was looming. That something could have been taken straight out of the playbook of either Cyprus, or Greece, or the USSR "evil empire", or all three. This is how the WSJ explained it: The U.S. Justice Department’s criminal head said banks may need to go beyond filing suspicious activity reports when they encounter a risky customer.

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...

In what should be news to precisely nobody (especially our readers, for whom we laid out the next Easing steps very clearly on the day QEternity was announced, including the continuation of Twist after December 31, 2012 at which point the Fed would merely monetize long-dated paper without selling short-end, i.e. unsterilized), the just released FOMC minutes indicated that "a number" of FOMC members favored more (infiniter) QE after the end of Twist. In other words, the Fed will have to continue monetizing the long-end of the Treasury issuance in lieu of other willing buyers. Recall that the Fed is...

FED MINUTES: MORE FED MEMBERS FAVOR EASING IF LOW GROWTH CONTINUES Eric Platt Aug. 22, 2012, 2:00 PM UPDATE: More Federal Open Markets Committee members say they favor additional quantitative easing if the economy cannot sustain growth, according to newly released minutes of the Fed's August meeting. Here's the most important part of the release: "A number of them indicated that additional accommodation could help foster a more rapid improvement in labor market conditions in an environment in which price pressures were likely to be subdued. Many members judged that additional monetary accommodation would likely be warranted fairly soon unless...

Edwin M. Truman explains why the spreading LIBOR scandal has the potential of raising new doubts over the reputations for honesty of many large financial institutions.