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Administered Markets: The Ultimate Manifestation Of ‘Don’t Fight The Fed’
Fed communication is clear, Deutsche Bank's Stuart Sparks writes, in a new note.
Negative short rates have been rejected as a short-term policy tool for additional easing when it comes to combatting the crisis.
"The implication is that additional easing will be provided through balance sheet growth", Sparks goes on to say, reiterating the message from a note out Thursday, and driving home a series of points made previously and documented extensively here in "How Many Trillions Equals Negative
QE is really the only option and it is of limited utility in this environment. Negative rates are not some magic elixir that will spur growth — look no further than Japan — and does anyone advocating NIRP really believe that we could go infinitely negative? Accepting the reality that rates do have a lower bound (and does it really matter whether that is 0 or 50 basis points negative except to banks, savers, pension fund managers, entitlement actuaries?).
It seems as though many people do not realize that the Fed is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. The Fed cannot fix this (and people should stop expecting it to –they have amazingly kept the financial world from imploding) alone even if its balance sheet grows to 10T (as I believe it will –at a minimum). A very robust fiscal stimulus (infrastructure along with the House Bill might be a start) is the only path forward –and very long and arduous that path will be. Our political, not financial, institutions must see us through this crisis as bleak as that prospect is –but we did start the Great Depression with Hoover –let’s just hope we opt for an FDR rather than a Hitler. . .
Our institutions , political as well as economic were not designed to function in a world of metaphysical reality… This post is exploring the edges of just such a world….Reading Dalio ,other than today,s post , generally gives one a reassurance that we live in a world with limits unlike the concepts of infinity which seem to have become available rhetoric to describe Financial events nowadays.
Unless the guardrails fail us totally we are likely approaching another event in history where the Deck gets reshuffled and the same game is dealt only the players having to some part changed roles…
The world has changed but I doubt the species , referring to modern man , has been able to shed it’s stripes to keep pace…Surely the toughest task is to keep something like this forum fact based but thanks for the effort H…….
It seems to me that this market administration is like pushing on a bag of goo. Somewhere else something will push out. I am wondering what the side effects of administered primary markets as it relates to investment alternatives.
I have not read any where what is known (or theorized) about actual side effect of administering the markets. Maybe could this be the subject of a future post?
I since read link and link to link. However I only saw an honorable mention go to FX markets. Clearly the Fed has not targeted FX markets directly. I did see some discussion how this lets the ‘real’ or main street economy float with volatility. This side effect should affect the ability of the FED to administer the markets, at least on the margins.
I also wonder if this administered market envisions at least part of what happened in Japan.
In addition to J-Pow standing on the back-end of the UST curve, I am also seeing research notes indicating that speculative short positions in 30-Year UST Futures are back at all-time record levels. So any jolt of risk-off in the equity markets may lead to a rush for long-dated UST’s, and potentially a violent unwind in those short 30-Year futures positions. Wouldn’t be surprising at all to see 30-Year yields back below 1.00% at some point this summer.
The singularity concept is compelling (thanks for sharing that H-man). And as the FED’s balance sheet is theoretically unbound, it could go to infinity before letting rates rise amidst a depression. But so much for anti-NIRPian forward guidance if (“when” in my view) deflation knocks on the front door, and real rates start rising. I guess that would mean the rest of the “toolkit” has been exhausted, because they’d have to go negative regardless of what they may say now.