What more can the FED?
What we're experiencing this year and especially these days is something historic and have the option to settle for suffering from its consequences or opt for the path of living a historic moment that can change the system. Fortunately, the crisis now is not like before and if in 29 people are dying of hunger in the now as we complain because we have to take the bus instead of the car. Once assumed that some of our comforts may be in danger move to "have fun" with what is happening and learn a lot from this science is so uncertain economy.
Therefore, on days like today keys, I prefer to ignore the usual tatting with which we open the morning to go into areas with more chicha, handheld Droblo of our friend, we try to answer the following question. What more can the FED?
Last Friday, European markets closed with hikes confident an early solution to the problem of Lehman USA and strangely closed without losses despite the sharp drop in the value of AIG and the fear of a collapse in Merry lynched and Washington Mutual. The reason for the fear to sell (not interested in buying) in the stock market index was due to the suspicion, based on previous experiences, some of the FED action to solve all problems.
And we must recognize that the EDF tried: they spent the weekend with meetings in which also participated actively Paulson, the equivalent of our Solbes. Not that anyone managed to buy Lehman when it was not an endorsement of the debt by the EDF and that was something that either was not willing to do to lay no more precedents or not it was economically feasible weighing pros and cons. Something had to do with the purchase of Merry lynched by the BOA because it is unthinkable that the latter has paid $ 29 per share for a bank which closed Friday at $ 17 share, and has taken a series of measures redesigning facilities liquidity to try to explain in layman language:
- Prior to lend money in PDCF (Primary Dealer Credit Facility) required assets exceeding debt rated BBB, that is, requiring a certain credit quality for money in primary market is now more flexible.
- In the auction TSLF (Term Securities Lending Facilitiy) also allows more papers to discount to banks and increases the volume of 175 billion to 200 billion.
- Moreover, instead of doing the auctions every two weeks, are now weekly.
- And, finally, removes restrictions that prevented depository institutions to provide liquidity to affiliates (essentially, their own investment banks) to finance assets. Except extension, this measure expires in January 2009 (I am afraid it will be extended but that is another issue)
Indirectly, it has fostered the creation of a fund made up of private liquidity ten of the big banks, with 70,000 million USD. If necessary, each bank can borrow from the fund, against collateral, at most one third of the total: 23,000 million USD compared with an initial contribution of 7,000 million USD. The participating banks are: Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS.
Additionally, the ECB and the BoE have made extraordinary injections of liquidity:
- The ECB has injected 30 billion euros a day to a minimum bid rate of 4.25%, with results that reflect the tensions of liquidity: the amount requested has exceeded 90 billion, the marginal rate has been positioned in 4.3% and 4.7% at maximum.
- The Bank of England has injected 5 billion pounds to 3 days at a rate of 5%.
And we can add that China lowered its interest rates slightly more than quarter-point.
The markets, however, demanded more: decreases in rates of overtime. That was done for example in August 2007 and January 2008 and although it was positive in the short term, the medium has proved a mistake. Why? First, because the decision on interest rates should proceed in a debate driven by complex data and not because the bag down and secondly, because the problem of the financial system are not interest rates but the fear lend money to each other. Thus, the only thing they can do today (no sense now to talk about past mistakes) is to inject money into banks, which is what we do, curbing speculation bearish (the actions of the SEC, which will return a prolonged, leading to that) and trying to launch clear messages to the markets. I've been very critical of the EDF, I can not see, again, today, what more can be done.
We all want to see the lower rates thanks to lower crude oil (which as discussed in the commentaries, this site day in and day out have not yet had an impact on the price reaches the consumer) is possible inflation us a respite and the economic slowdown is an incentive for rebates aggressive in the price of money. The problem is that the collapse of Lehman means that any bank can break and this makes the price at which it has the liquidity it provides to another, regardless of the official rates. Perhaps it could do something that the government impose mortgages were at Euribor 3 months instead of yearly, and the price would be closer to the officer and would be more real because in the interbank market operations to 12 months are rare.
Currently, the stock market session yesterday was shocking, with the biggest fall of the Dow Jones since the first meeting after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we see some values:
- BANK OF AMERICA -20%
- CITIGROUP -14%
- WACHOVIA -25%
- WASHINGTON MUTUAL -27%
And the "stars":
- AIG -58%
- LEHMAN -95%
And the new minimum annual SP500 marked down more than 4% and the Brazilian stock market fell nearly 7% ...
And in conclusion, the press briefing:
- An interesting article in cotizalia on the financial crisis.
- Why the bankruptcy of Lehman threatens your way of life
- Santander, BBVA and Bancaja claim to have very low exposures at Lehman
- The Nikkei lost 5%, its biggest drop in three years
- The stock market drew AIG as the next victim of the credit crisis
- The carnage bank lowers the price of crude oil to 91 U.S. dollars
Written by Droblo the Sept. 16, 2008 with 209 reviews.









(4.75 out of 5)
# 1, Carlos Lopez
I remember the forum for issues outside the rule of the day (as the eternal struggle hire-purchase):
http://www.euribor.com.es/foro/