Federal Reserve

How $253 Trillion in Total Global Debt Measures Against the United States

Posted: January 13, 2020 at 11:20 am

It is no secret that the nations of the world have accumulated mountains of debt over time. It is also not just the nations and central banks that have accumulated ...
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Why No Major Interest Rate Changes Should Be Expected in 2020

Posted: January 8, 2020 at 7:25 am

Interest rates and inflation in America remain low by historical standards. As 2019 has now faded away and turned into 2020, investors, business owners and borrowers need to pay attention ...
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Can Record Highs Withstand Year-End Liquidity Demands?

Posted: December 26, 2019 at 1:50 pm

Before noon on the day after Christmas, both the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq Composite index set new intraday highs. The S&P is up nearly 30% for the year ...
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Federal Reserve Shows Specifically How Much Uncertainty Has Hurt the Stock Market

Posted: November 19, 2019 at 1:00 pm
Last updated: January 6, 2020 1:05 am

The bull market is now nearly 10 and a half years old, and stocks have again recently managed to reach all-time highs, with the Dow Jones industrials hitting 28,000 and ...
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Why the Federal Reserve Rate Cutting Cycle Already May Be Over

Posted: November 7, 2019 at 11:20 am
Last updated: January 6, 2020 1:22 am

With news of the trade negotiations between the United States and China going well, it will be time to rethink some of the more negative economic expectations for the end ...
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Fed Rate Comes Just As Expected

Posted: October 30, 2019 at 3:35 pm
Last updated: January 6, 2020 1:35 am

Wednesday's announcement by the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC) of a quarter-point cut in its policy rate was expected. According to the CME FedWatch Tool, there was a 99% ...
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The October FOMC Meeting May Be the Last Rate Cut of 2019

Posted: October 28, 2019 at 11:00 am
Last updated: January 6, 2020 1:40 am

The last week of October is going to be an important one for the global financial markets. As Europe and Japan have trillions of dollars worth of negative yields on ...
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NY Fed Shows Regional Services Business Leaders Turning Negative

Posted: October 16, 2019 at 10:20 am
Last updated: January 6, 2020 1:58 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
Last updated: January 11, 2020 3:31 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
Last updated: January 6, 2020 1:59 am

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
Last updated: January 6, 2020 2:02 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
Last updated: January 6, 2020 2:17 am

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
Last updated: January 11, 2020 3:49 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
Last updated: January 11, 2020 3:56 am

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
Last updated: January 6, 2020 2:20 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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