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Well, you’ve probably heard by now that the Fed lowered rates by .25. So what does that mean? A couple of points to think about:
1. What the Fed lowers is the shortest of the short term rates and it typically helps home equity loans but doesn’t matter much to mortgage rates.
2. Why did they lower rates? Because the financial markets are hurting and they needed to at least appear to help out the economy and the markets. Just this week (and it’s only Tuesday at 5:00) we’ve seen UBS announce $10 BILLION in writedowns (losses) and Washington Mutual announced $1.4 billion in write downs, laid off 3150 people and said, (I’m paraphrasing,) “We have no clue what 2008 is going to look like.”
3. Will what the Fed did today help matters at all? I think the best way to describe it is sort of like putting a Mickey Mouse band aid on a 6 inch gash in your arm. It doesn’t hurt, but it really doesn’t do much. The business world will benefit from cheaper borrowings (since prime is dropping) but the big problem in the economy (housing) won’t really be impacted.
4. Did the market like what it got, ahh, that would be a resounding no. Sort of like a little kid crying to his Mama, the Dow dropped almost 300 points in less than 2 hours.
Have you ever tried to push a string across the table? It’s hard to get it to move unless you are pulling it, isn’t it. Well, that’s sort of what The Fed is doing. They are using the tools that they have to try to save the market, but the tools that they have aren’t what the market needs, so they aren’t able to be very effective.
If you want to read what the Fed said, copy this into a browser and check it out……
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20071211a.htm
The fed’s average number of rate movements is 11. This is the 3rd movement thus far in this swing. The last rate swing was 18 movements UP. Our economy is very ill right now and I think the fed has a long ways to go. f
I don’t feel to sorry for the markets however, the fed did make it clear at their last meeting that they expected bad news in the 4th quarter. I think that was their warning to not expect too much.
I am surprised that they didnt cut the discount window more. I know that the big banks were very hopeful for that advantage.
The Fed needs to decide who they’re trying to help. If it’s Wall Street, then more cuts are imminent. If they truly want to help all those borrowers with ARMs tied to LIBOR they need to raise US short term rates by a bunch, as that’s the only thing that will bring LIBOR down. Given who gets elected to Fed Governorships, us consumers suck hind tit yet again.
well put tom - when all you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.