In what appears to be an orderly process, The NY Fed's first Reverse Repo operation since The FOMC 'raised' rates accepted $105.185 billion of Treasury collateral from 49 banks at 25bps. This is being greeted as good news by many as no major disprutions appear to have occurred... aside from, of course, a 6bps plunge in long-end bond yields, 250 point drop in The Dow, and notable weakness in high-yield bonds.
Cynical short-sellers are targeting some of Wall Street's most famous short-sellers. Amid plunges in the stock prices of David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital and Dan Loeb's Third Point reinsurance entities, Bloomberg reports that bearish investors have piled in pushing short interest (as a percent of shares outstanding) to its highest since 2009.
The Fed hiked... and the Treasury market threw up all over it, flattening the curve over 10bps in the last 16 hours (to 9 month lows). The reaction screams "policy error" as rate cut odds for January remain above rate-hike odds. Financials - who will benefit greatly from this rate hike if all the talking heads are to be believed - appears not to have got the flattening curve joke yet.
Not exactly an overwhelming vote of confidence!!!
Smashing 2s30s back below 200bps to 9-month lows...
Federal Reserve Rate Hike At ‘Precisely The Wrong Time’ – Faber
Marc Faber, the editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, warned yesterday that the Federal Reserve has raised rates at “precisely the wrong time.”
Speaking to CNBC just before the interest rate decision, Faber warned that it’s the wrong time because “the global economy has decelerated very badly, and many countries are already in recession, or going into recession.”
Yesterday, the Fed has hiked interest rates from 0.25% to 0.5%.
It is the first rate hike in 10 years. And it is now clear that the Fed is not only behind the ball in terms of raising rates… but that it has now primed the financial system for another 2008-type meltdown.
By way of background we need to consider the relationship between the US Dollar and the Euro.