It’s decision day once again for the world’s most powerful financial institution.
As we know, the Federal Reserve has been manipulating free market interest rates by way of their overnight federal funds rate, which is currently set at historic lows of 0.25%, where it has been for the better part of the last 13 years.
No analysts are predicting that the rate will change today, but many will be looking for clues as to when it might rise in the future.
Furthermore, each month the Fed is currently buying $80 billion worth of government debt and $40 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities.
All this money is of course created out of thin air at the push of a few buttons. As the meme goes, money printer is in high gear. So, we will of course listen for any clues as to when they may reduce these amounts.
After last week’s lukewarm inflation data, Fed policymakers would seem to have little motivation to start tapering now, and they are very likely to keep the party going for as long as they can. Markets are rallying today in anticipation.
Nice chart
The recent Evergrande drama, which we covered in Monday’s update, now seems to have faded, and the buy-the-dip mentality that has been egging on the markets for nearly a decade now seems in perfect position.
Here’s the graph of the S&P 500, with each candlestick representing one day. As we can see, the market has now come a total of 5.42% off of its all-time high, an increasingly rare phenomenon.
