US Federal Reserve

Submitted by Ben Hunt via Salient Partners' Epsilon Theory blog,

Earlier today, Art Cashin summarized most (very desperate) traders' thoughts when he said that as a result of today's market crash, "the Fed will try anything" to prop up the wealth effect it had so carefully engineered with seven years of central planning in the aftermath of the financial crisis.  Perhaps the only question left is "where is the put", or where on the S&P 500 is the Fed's breaking point beyond which Yellen will have no choice but to make a statement, or take action, in support of the market.

One year ago, when the Fed released its 2009 transcript, we learned that after a terrible 2008, the Fed's sense of humor gradually returned and instances of the word "laughter" in declassified Fed transcripts rebounded in 2009.

As a reminder, the Fed's sense of humor as determined by recorded incidences of "laughter" at FOMC meetings hit their highest level on record in July 2007, which coincides exactly with the moment when the housing bubble finally burst (remember: they weren’t laughing at you, they were laughing with you). The laughter died down quickly after that.

Against hope-strewnm expectations of a bounce from -4.6 to -4, Empire Fed printed a disastrous -19.37 - the largest miss on record. New orders collapsed, shipments plunged, and employees and workweek continue to contract. Forward-looking employment expectations also plunged. The last time Empire Fed crashed to these levels was the immediate aftermath of the Lehman bankuptcy and the global financial crisis and the peak of the recession in 2001... but we are sure this is just transitory.

Not "off the lows"

It appears the world is ganging up on The Fed as following China's recent clear and present threat should the USD strengthen, BoJ's Kuroda warned that further QQE might threaten the bank's finances - implicitly demanding moar from Yellen because he knows he's out of bullets.