Tag Archives: Fed Funds Rate

Continuing Claims->UE Rate->FF Rate

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Karim writes:

The chart attached shows the last 3 cycles in continuing claims, the unemployment rate and the FF rate.

Continuing claims is a coincident to leading indicator of the unemployment rate. Its interesting that in the last two cycles, continuing claims made what appears to be a double top before the unemployment rate peaked. In those cycles, the lag between the peak in the unemployment rate and the first Fed rate hike was 12mths (June 2003-June 2004) and 19mths (July 1992-Feb 2004).

While this cycle is notably different than the others in many respects (size and speed of economic deterioration as well as policy response), look for the Fed to make some reference (implicit or explicit) to the unemployment rate coming down in a sustainable fashion before tightening policy. Based on history, even if this month was the peak in the unemployment rate, the first hike seems unlikely until mid-2010. Based on likely further deterioration in the ue rate, first hike unlikely before 2011.


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Re: The Sunny Side

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(an email exchange)

>   
>   On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 10:24 AM, Tom wrote:
>   
>   Hi Coach,
>   
>   While financial markets are in a meltdown not unlike the post 9/11
>   experience,
>   

yes, major deleveraging going on

>   
>   the good news is that central banks around the world are providing
>   coordinated liquidity injections along with other positive actions that may
>   create a new basis for global financial rescues.
>   

yes, but all that does is set the fed funds rate and term fed funds rate. it’s about price, not quantity

>   
>   The creation of the League of Nations was an example of how the world
>   responded to WWI.
>   
>   Tom
>   
>   P.S. But it is still not time to buy stock.
>   

agreed!

watch for fiscal policy to do the heavy lifting to support GDP and employment.


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Re: Federal Reserve Announcement

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(an email exchange)

On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 9:44 AM, Jeff wrote:

The Fed announced today that, starting May 5th, it was expanding its cash-loan biweekly auctions for banks (Term Auction Facility or TAF) by 50% to $75 billion each auction.  This was the third increase in the four months the program has existed.  The Fed also expanded the collateral accepted for the US Treasuries to include other AAA private-label mbs securities,

good, it should be open to any member bank assets- they are all occ legal anyway

in addition to the residential and commercial mbs and agency CMOs that it already accepts.  It also increased its currency swap facility with the ECB to $50 billion and with the Swiss National Bank to $12 billion and extended the terms through January 2009. 

interesting that the ECB needs more dollars.  if there is going to be a systemic failure it’s in the eurozone.

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FOMC Analysis

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On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 7:43 AM, Karim wrote:

Sorry for delay—was in transit yday.

Recent information indicates that economic activity remains weak. Household and business spending has been subdued and labor markets have softened further. Financial markets remain under considerable stress, and tight credit conditions and the deepening housing contraction are likely to weigh on economic growth over the next few quarters.

Note: Economic activity not weakening further and credit conditions not tightening further, but remain ‘weak’ and ‘tight’, respectively. Housing contraction still deepening and labor market still softening.

So we remain stuck around 0% growth with tight credit conditions and a worsening labor market..

Although readings on core inflation have improved somewhat, energy and other commodity prices have increased, and some indicators of inflation expectations have risen in recent months. The Committee expects inflation to moderate in coming quarters, reflecting a projected leveling-out of energy and other commodity prices and an easing of pressures on resource utilization. Still, uncertainty about the inflation outlook remains high. It will be necessary to continue to monitor inflation developments carefully.

Note: Removed ‘inflation remains elevated’ and uncertainty about inflation has not increased, but ‘remains high’.

Feeling a little better about inflation but way too early to sound all-clear.

The substantial easing of monetary policy to date, combined with ongoing measures to foster market liquidity, should help to promote moderate growth over time and to mitigate risks to economic activity. The Committee will continue to monitor economic and financial developments and will act as needed to promote sustainable economic growth and price stability.

Note: Removed downside risks remain and ‘act in a timely manner’.

Don’t see growth falling much below the -1% to +1% range and will likely not ease at the June meeting.

I agree with former FOMC member Poole who described the statement as ‘hardly a loud and clear signal’ of a pause.

I think the Fed stands ready to ease further if fiscal action (notable in its absence in the statement) and prior eases don’t gain traction over the course of H2.

Agreed with all.

The FOMC continues to ‘trust their models’ and forecast declining inflation.

The economy continues to muddle through with GDP just north of 0, with CPI remaining north of 4% for what is adding up to a substantial period of time.

What the Fed is saying is that the current output gap/’resource utilization level’ is more than adequate to bring down cpi as per their forecasts.

This is what the mainstream would call a very high risk strategy, with the risk being that the cost of bringing down inflation later will be a lot higher than it would have been to bring it down sooner.

 

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Re: WSJ: Greg Ip’s Article

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right, it’s a way to keep the ff rate from falling below target, but does nothing for ‘liquidity’ that’s not already being done.

seems fomc maybe still struggling with ‘monetary operations’

From: Adam
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 3:59 AM
To: a
Subject: CS: DEF WORTH A READ – GREG IP ARTICLE THAT PROPOSES ANOTHER FED INNOVATION – ALL EXPLAINED BELOW

 

Greg Ip’s piece in the WSJ received some attention today. The piece is titled “ Fed to Consider Paying Interest To Commercial Banks on Reserves” and states that the Fed will discuss this proposal at todays meeting. There is no suggestion that the Fed are about to immediately change the current standard policy of paying zero per-cent for reserve balances, but given that the press had a very good lead on the introduction of the TSLF and PDCF it’s prudent to pay attention. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120941973079950909.html?mod=economy_lead_story_lsc)

The reason for changing policy and paying interest on reserve balances is not at first obvious, but is in fact a simple way for the Fed to solve the problem of increasing cash liquidity in the banking system without driving down the Fed effective rate. As the Fed take illiquid asset-backed securities from banks they hand over cash in return. As banks get zero interest on reserve balances that are left with the Fed they quickly seek to place their newly raised cash out into the market, earning a coupon on their investment instead of earning nothing on a reserve balance. As the Fed pay nothing it is in every banks interest to lend any excess balances at rates greater than zero, and what typically happens is that the cash market rate falls dramatically as cash rich banks try and find bids, offering at lower and lower rates until we get close to zero. This is an unwelcome development from the Fed’s perspective as the effective Fed Funds rate that results is often significantly lower than the official Fed target rate. By injecting large amounts of cash liquidity into the system the Fed may actually undermine their own target rate.

Paying a coupon on reserve balances would allow the Fed to inject as much cash via asset-backed repo as they like without needing to worry about driving down the Fed effective cash rate. The Fed would effectively sterilize their own cash injection by placing a guaranteed fixed rate floor on reserve funds, and ensuring that something close to the Fed Funds target rate was achieved. This would mean that the Fed could continue to increase the amount of repo’s that they are willing to undertake and to upsize the auctions without concerns about the effects of huge amounts of excess cash

sloshing around in the system.

Some thoughts to go along with this:

  • Great care needs to be taken in setting guaranteed cash levels. Sometimes unexpected consequences result. Central banks like the RBA and RBNZ  have long operated a cash system which guarantees a floor on overnight rates at a margin below the target rate. This ensures that cash generally trades close to the target rate, or slightly rich to it. Generally local market participants prefer to hold an excess of long balances in the knowledge that cash shortages often occur, but they have a defined downside guarantee. In New Zealand’s case the RBNZ found that banks were hoarding cash to such an extent that the short dated market traded significantly above the OCR target because the banks had a 25bp downside guarantee. It wasn’t until the RBNZ reduced the guaranteed floor substantially that rates traded much closer to target.

 

Banks that get cash from the Fed via the PDCF currently seek to off-load that cash to the street, effectively spreading liquidity to all elements of the banking system, and discouraging the holding of very short term balances which will end of earning 0% if they are not on-lent. If the Fed’s guaranteed rate is not far enough below the FF target rate Banks will simply recycle any excess back to the Fed rather than taking unsecured interbank credit risk. This may leave the smaller regional Banks without direct Fed access short of cash, forcing them to pay a premium instead of getting funds at a discount. The challenge of course is that if the rate is set too far below the Fed Fund’s Target rate the Fed will have the same problem of the effective daily rate printing substantially beneath target. An appropriate margin that the Fed should pay on reserves is likely to be around 50bp below the target rate. This will prevent the Fed effective rate from collapsing, but the 50bp penalty will also incentivise banks to find alternative borrowers wherever possible

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Lender of next-to-last resort?

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There seems to be an alternative to the discount stigma – is the liquidity problem too big for (orthodox) central banks?

The Federal Home Loan Bank System: Lender of Next-to-Last Resort?

Morten Bech, Federal Reserve Bank of New York

When we look at the FHLB balance sheet, we see a $746b surge in net lending to the banking system (at an annualized rate) in Q3. Is it true, then, that banks are suffering from an access to funding? If banks have been shy about tiptoeing to the discount window, they seem to have had no such bashfulness on their way to borrowing or securing advances from FHLB.

How, then, can any Fed official get in front of a microphone with a straight face and say we have a liquidity problem, best addressed by a TAF facility, which at the moment is scheduled to auction off a fraction of that which has already been loaned by FHLB to the banking system?

‘Liquidity’ for fed member banks is about price, not quantity. There is a ‘liquidity problem’ when the term structure of interbank rates isn’t to the fed’s liking.

Currently, the issue seems to be LIBOR – the fed wants the spread over fed funds to be narrower, particularly over year end. The ‘new facility’ should directly address this particular pricing issue.

There is another problem with this injecting liquidity story. If the Fed wishes to maintain the fed funds rate at the current target, assuming the demand curve for reserves remains stable, the Fed will have to remove as many reserves through open market operations as they inject through the TAF.

Yes. Not a problem. The TAF should function exactly that way to narrow spreads above.

If they don’t, the reserves will be in surplus, and the fed funds rate will fall below the target. In fact, the Fed’s balance sheet has been growing relatively slowly, even though they have been easing, especially when compared to the unprecedented expansion of FHLB balance sheet growth.

Yes, again, it’s all about price, not quanity.

The FHLB is acting as a broker – long with some investors/banks/etc and short with others.

♥

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