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The Fed Will Be Building A Corporate Bond Portfolio. Or Didn’t You Believe Them?
Capital markets are supposed to be efficient, but they sure don't act like it sometimes.
Monday was a case in point.
To paraphrase The Brain from the film "Brick" (an absurdly underrated neo-noir masterpiece), I bet if you got every trader in town together and said 'Show your hands' if any of them didn't know the Fed would soon announce details around purchases of individual corporate bonds, you'd get a crowd of full pockets.
In other words: It's not exactly a secret that the Fed is poised to
Does this now mean that the only companies that can go broke are those bought by private equity?
An IPO before bankruptcy would make more sense
I can’t help but to think about your recent post on Kocic’s state of exception, the Fed buying individual corporate bonds is another way to cement the state of exception as the new normal, will this cause further atrophy in the markets transmission mechanism? Even if it does will it matter? I guess only time will tell, I know you have detailed in exhaustion how the measures by the Fed have had the intended result, I cannot disagree with the fact the backstop has worked and I have little interest in joining the moral hazard crew, but to the extend the Fed feeds the market dependency loop we move further away from a market where price discovery is the main driver. Distressed debt investors are in a win win situation, they can gorge in high yielding junk and if things turn sour just sell their junk to Jerome. Central Banks have created a monster that needs to be managed constantly to maintain an illusion of control and functionality, we give the addict more and stronger drugs in the hope that some day it may simply cure itself, there is no exit plan so this better works.
The moral hazard problem (and free riding and adverse selection) is/are a real problems that do raise transaction costs and misallocate capital in the long run whether it’s hip to believe in it or not. Consciously deferring addressing those problems is one thing but denying they present real danger is quite another. The Austrian leeches and bleeding prescription is obviously fatal for the patient, but that doesn’t mean that “Oh taking one made you feel better? Great let’s double the dose” is good for the patient either.
Thanks for the chuckle, H. So much for an efficient market. I can’t believe I ate that garbage up in college. Another classic example…..NKLAW
I am starting to wonder what exactly markets are any more. MMT at the consumer level at least makes sense as market participants need to compete to capture the money as it gets spent. MMT at the corporate level basically turns corporations into shell companies to syphon wealth from the US population. Is that where we are now, the vulture funds out of other targets are simply going to withdraw the full value of the USA then close up shop and skip town? You can complain about the looting in the streets but this is the real show.
I’m not much of a reader of Fed tea leaves.
On its face, there appears to be no need for the Fed to buy corporate bonds. Credit conditions are fine, at least for larger companies. Is it possible that the Fed is flexing its muscles in anticipation of much worse credit conditions ahead?
If so, should we expect a similar program for munis?
The Fed will be soon buying stocks. Front run that, Robinhood!
Will be interesting to see the political pressure on the rating agencies and the MMT for corps when the fundamentals for some of these companies degrade to untenable situations.
We’ll all be hearing a lot about “extend and pretend” in the future.
Socialism Trump style. Rs must be loving it.
Not sure whether this makes Bernie happy or sad.
This is not amoral Hazard issue at all……This is a human failing in if this solution does not work we go up the ladder looking for a more drastic remedy… Capitalist based systems do not operate well in reverse… You might liken this to prehistoric Brontosaurus who ate all the low leaves on the trees…and did not survive the ice ago ..(as the fable goes) ..Time for some selective adaptation me thinks….
Ignoring moral hazard arguments (for now), pragmatically speaking we have functioning credit markets and high flying equities so shouldn’t the Fed be hinting at an exit strategy so the market digests it early?
Everything I heard in Powell’s overcommunicative “plain speech” model was “we’re really worried, lots of uncertainty, I guess we’ll save the US if the Congress won’t” which to me indicates they’re ok with unintended consequences as long as the bigger hammer “solves” economic problems… except the problem is a virus?
(Is Powell committing to trickle-down-middle-man funding until a widespread vaccine?)