The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates to near 0% and is printing $700 billion over coming months to buy treasuries and mortgages.
The Open Market Trading Desk (the Desk) at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York: “The first such purchases will begin tomorrow, March 13, 2020. Today, March 12, 2020, the Desk will offer $500 billion in a three-month repo operation at 1:30 pm ET that will settle on March 13, 2020. Tomorrow, the Desk will further offer $500 billion in a three-month repo operation and $500 billion in a one-month repo operation for same day settlement.”
Oil, Stocks, and Interest Rates are all lower.
Stocks opened up and were stopped out down more than 7% after futures were halted overnight at a loss of 5%.
If you lent money to a country with the most debt in recorded history, would you charge historically low interest rates?
“In light of these risks and in support of achieving its maximum employment and price stability goals, the Federal Open Market Committee decided today to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/2 percentage point, to 1 to 1‑1/4 percent.“ FOMC 3/3/2020
“Other Central Banks are much more aggressive. The U.S. should have, for all of the right reasons, the lowest Rate.” -President Trump
“We will use our tools and act as appropriate to support the economy.“ -Chairman Powell.
Fear trades are starting to be profitable. Once bond holders realize that their paper profits will be inflated away by central banks, then gold will see record highs in all currencies.
“Putting it in context, the total credit injection of more than 5 trillion yuan, or roughly $725 billion, in one month, was the single biggest on record.”
The world faces a depression.
What if peace had broken out in 1914?
“[…] go short credit & stocks when new lows in bond yields & US$ appreciation becomes disorderly bearish signaling tighter Fed liquidity & sparking recession/default fears.”
-Bank of America CIO Michael Hartnett
The decline in the Baltic Dry Index is matched only by the late 2015- early 2016 plunge. Anyone paying attention back then remembers August as being interesting.
JP Morgan Chase is being investigated for manipulating the precious metals market.
If the virus is worse than presently known… Black Swan.
What happens when unlimited demand hits supply constraints?
The Corona Virus in China could be worse than is officially reported and is spreading through Asia. Locusts swarms are spreading through East Africa to Pakistan.
The art of good business is being a good middleman. The cartels are middlemen. If people have a choice to legally use other middlemen, per the US Bill of Rights, then the cartels will lose the money to finance their wars.
The British will leave the EU today, Jan 31st, at 23:00 Greenwich Mean Time (5 PM Central).
Repo purchases,[2] after they were initially started without warning on Sept 17, were originally only supposed to go through Oct, then Nov, and as of yesterday, through the end of January.
“Third, there is a more obvious explanation behind the stock market’s rise: the prospect of a sustained economic expansion and a Fed that is likely to stay on the sidelines and not raise its federal funds rate target in 2020.”
-Bill Dudley, former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
