Federal Reserve

NY Fed Shows Regional Services Business Leaders Turning Negative

Posted: October 16, 2019 at 10:20 am

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has released a monthly Business Leaders Survey, which is a semi-live reading as the data is for October. This monthly Federal Reserve survey ...
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Weak Retail Sales Weigh on the Markets

Posted: October 16, 2019 at 10:05 am

In a sensitive economy in which growth is slowing enough that recession fears are high, every single economic report is given a very close look. Retail sales matter when it ...
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Backward and Forward, San Francisco Fed Paper Assesses Negative US Interest Rates

Posted: October 15, 2019 at 2:25 pm

The lowest interest rates can ever go is zero-point-zero percent. That's how things work in a vacuum. In the real world, negative interest rates are alive and well, and we ...
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Student Debt Nears $1.5 Trillion, 5 Times 2003 Level

Posted: October 14, 2019 at 9:54 am

As of the end of the second quarter of this year, U.S. student loan debt outstanding amounted to $1.48 trillion, a total more than five times the amount borrowed in ...
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Bad Economic News Turns Into Good News, Interest Rate Cut Odds Looking Strong

Posted: October 3, 2019 at 2:12 pm

Sometimes there is a situation where bad news is good news in the financial markets. After the first contraction was seen in manufacturing this week, it turns out that services ...
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Why 2% GDP Growth in Q3 Still Looks Likely, Despite Many Concerns

Posted: September 28, 2019 at 8:35 am

The week of September 28 was a very busy one in economic news. We had home sales, trade data, durable goods, consumer spending and even an upward revision to consumer ...
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Oil & Gas Industry Deteriorating on Low Prices, Idle Rigs: Dallas Fed Survey

Posted: September 25, 2019 at 12:10 pm

In its third-quarter survey on the oil and gas industry, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported Wednesday that energy sector growth declined sharply. The bank's business activity index dropped ...
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Bullard Explains FOMC Vote, Fed Spends Another $75 Billion on Repo Market

Posted: September 20, 2019 at 9:45 am

James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, cast one of three dissenting votes at this week's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), where a ...
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The Question the Fed Did Not Answer When It Cut Rates

Posted: September 19, 2019 at 10:10 am

Wednesday's announcement by the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC) of a quarter-point cut in its policy rate was expected. What may not have been expected is the split among ...
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Fed Snips Another Quarter Point From Funds Rate

Posted: September 18, 2019 at 2:52 pm

As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on Wednesday announced that the Federal Reserve will lower its policy interest rate from a prior range of 2% to 2.25% to ...
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After Fed Enters Repo Operation, Odds of FOMC Rate Cut Now Questionable

Posted: September 17, 2019 at 3:22 pm

It has become more difficult to forecast the Federal Reserve's next move, or at least the timing of it. The odds of a September 18 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) ...
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When Will $1 Trillion Deficits Start to Matter?

Posted: September 12, 2019 at 4:41 pm

With another round of Presidential candidate debates on the docket, it's time to talk about deficits. Realistically, it seems no one in Washington, D.C. has any great plans about how ...
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The Real Recession Odds: Perception Versus Reality

Posted: September 9, 2019 at 8:05 am

If Paul Revere were alive today, the financial media would have quoted him as saying, "A recession is coming! A recession is coming!" There is just one major problem. Not ...
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Despite Trade and Recession Fears, Durable Goods Support Higher GDP Growth

Posted: August 26, 2019 at 12:20 pm

Many reports in the media suggest the decade-long recovery and growth of the U.S. economy is in trouble. Gross domestic product (GDP), the official metric for measuring or scoring the ...
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Did Fed Chair Powell Just Wink and Commit to More Rate Cuts?

Posted: August 23, 2019 at 10:50 am

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday at the Challenges for Monetary Policy annual symposium. The notion that the title includes "Challenges" should speak for ...
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