Business

The Fed Vice-Chair has begun laying the groundwork for NIRP.

The US Federal Reserve is obsessed with market reactions to its policies. Because of this, anytime the Fed plans to announce a major change in policy, it preps the markets via numerous leaks and hints… oftentimes for months in advance.

An excellent example of this concerns the Fed’s decision to taper QE back in 2013.

At that time, the Fed had been engaging in two open ended-QE programs… programs that had been running for over six months.

Ask the Fed what market indicators are implying about recession odds and it will tell you: about 4%. There is one problem with the Fed's model: as Deutsche Bank's Dominic Konstam shows, it is wrong due to the Fed's own intervention in the yield curve.

While Chicago's business outlook managed a miraculous bounce in January, New York did not. ISM New York printed 54.6, plunging most since August from December's 62.0 level. The extremely noisy time series continues to swing, this time lower, as the underlying components deteriorate with Revenues collapsing to at least 3 year lows.

Headline data tumbled...

But Revenues crashed to the lowest since at least 2013...

Since The Fed hiked rates mid-December, 10Y Treasury yields have plunged around 40bps with today's 6bps drop taking out 1.9015% Black Monday lows, all the way back to April 2015 lows.

1.8965% lows today is the lowest since April 21st 2015.

Policy-Error?

It may not be quite as dramatic as halting a dividend for already profusely sweating investors, but when it comes to the impact on the stock price, buybacks traditionally pack far more punch.