The Federal Reserve appears to be increasingly nervous about the long term bond market. This is serious. How panicked are they? After leaking a story on Friday, they are back at it on Sunday.
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| The Fed can of course print money to buy up every Treasury bond in existence, but the inflationary ramifications would be Zimbabwe like, and crush the dollar on international currency markets. | |
The Federal Reserve leaked to CNBC’s Steve Liesman on Friday that they weren’t targeting long rates. Why such a leak? Probably because the Fed did not want to appear impotent in controlling the long rate. So they put out the word through Liesman that they weren’t targetting the long rate. Can you imagine what would happen to the markets if it sensed long rates were beyond the control of the Fed?
The Fed can of course print money to buy up every Treasury bond in existence, but the inflationary ramifications would be Zimbabwe like, and crush the dollar on international currency markets. Are we near the phase where all hell breaks loose? I have never even answered, maybe, to this question before. It’s always been, “no.” Now it’s maybe.
What really has me spooked is another article out this afternoon (on a Sunday) that Drudge has even picked up. It’s a Reuters story by Alister Bull. The headline: Federal Reserve puzzled by yield curve steepening.
Translation, the Fed doesn’t know what is going on, but they are really scared.
Here’s more from Bull:
The Federal Reserve is studying significant moves in the U.S. government bond market last week that could have big implications for the central bank’s strategy to combat the country’s recession.
But the Fed is not really sure what is driving the sharp rise in long-dated bond yields, and especially a widening gap between short and long term yields.
Do rising U.S. Treasury yields and a steepening yield curve suggest an economic recovery is more certain, meaning less need for safe haven government bonds and a healthy demand for credit? If so, there might be less need for the Fed to expand the money supply by buying more U.S. Treasuries.
