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Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Will the Fed "Twist"?

Markets are getting bulled up on expectations of a perceived friendly Fed, including the possibility of a "Twist" operation.

What is a "Twist"? It is basically trying to lower long-term rates and raise short-term rates.  By manipulating the yield curve in this way, it supposedly helps the mortgage market.

But...the yield on the 10-year is at 1.65% and 30-year fixed rate mortgages are at 3.70%!  How will artificially pushing rates to even lower levels make a difference?

At this point, Bernanke is exploiting the Pavlov's dog characteristic of the markets.  Mention "Quantitative Easing" (or even just QE!) or "Operation Twist" and the stock market starts salivating. 

Maybe I was the only one taking notes in Econ 101, but I learned there that manipulating prices leads to misallocation of resources.  In the end, this ends badly - witness 2008.

3 comments:

  1. It's hard to see what more the Fed can do. Maybe factors outside the Fed's control are keeping the economy in the doldrums.

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  2. It appears more and more everyday that the economy is stalling so any help from the fed cannot really do much harm.

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  3. Interesting view point. I think this is a global issue which needs a combined effort.

    ReplyDelete