Fed Watch: Dudley Revisits Exit Strategy
Today New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley gave what was both an interesting and depressing speech. Interesting in that he provides some new thoughts on the exit strategy. Depressing in that he outlines a case for persistently low interest rates. One wonders why, given such an outlook, the Fed is so firmly focused on the ... Read more
Is the Fed Behind the Curve?
Imagine Fed Governor Rip van Winkle started his nap at the beginning of 2007 and just woke up to find that inflation is close to the Fed’s objective and the unemployment rate is at its 30-year average. You could forgive him for expecting the federal funds rate to be close to its long-run norm of ... Read more
Fed Watch: Employment Report Keeps Policy Makers on Their Toes
Just about everyone (myself included) who ventured a payrolls forecast was crushed by the scant December gain of just 74k. How much should you adjust your outlook on the basis of just this one number? Not much, if at all. It is important to watch for trends in the data, and always keep Barry Ritholtz’s warning in ... Read more
Fractional Money Multipliers
Money multipliers – the stock of money divided by a measure of base money (generally reserves plus currency in circulation) – are dwindling to fractions of what they used to be. FT Alphaville draws our attention to this fact on the Euro area (EA) using SocGen’s analysis. The money multiplier is a representation of how ... Read more