• 484 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 485 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 486 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 886 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 891 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 893 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 896 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 896 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 897 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 899 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 899 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 903 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 903 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 904 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 906 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 907 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 910 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 911 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 911 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 913 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
What's Behind The Global EV Sales Slowdown?

What's Behind The Global EV Sales Slowdown?

An economic slowdown in many…

How The Ultra-Wealthy Are Using Art To Dodge Taxes

How The Ultra-Wealthy Are Using Art To Dodge Taxes

More freeports open around the…

Is The Bull Market On Its Last Legs?

Is The Bull Market On Its Last Legs?

This aging bull market may…

  1. Home
  2. Markets
  3. Other

What is Quantitative Easing? Fed's Perspective and Writings

Part 3 in a 6 Part Video Series on Quantitative Easing

A Wall Street Journal article (10/27/10) on quantitative easing (QE) hints the Fed will take a middle of the road approach in terms of the size and duration of QE2. As we would expect, the stock and commodity markets' initial reaction is negative. A middle of the road approach to QE seems counter intuitive to the Fed's own historical analysis of why quantitative easing was ineffective in Japan. In CCM's July 2010 review of James Bullard's Seven Faces of "The Peril", our read between the lines interpretation of Bullard's take on QE included:

In order for quantitative easing to sufficiently increase future inflation expectations, market participants must believe the Fed will do "whatever it takes for as long as necessary" to obtain the objective of sufficiently positive inflation. This means the Fed must be willing to leave balance sheet expansion in place for as long as necessary to create expectations of higher future inflation by market participants (consumers, investors, companies, etc.). This reminds us of past "bazooka-like" policy moves, where policymakers would say, "You think we can't create positive inflation? Just watch."

The key to next week's Fed statement on QE will be how they address the concept of "whatever it takes for as long as necessary". We can use gold and the U.S. dollar to monitor the market's reaction to QE2. On October 11th in U.S. Dollar Could Rally In Coming Weeks, we hypothesized QE2 could be a "buy the rumor, sell the news event" relative to risk assets. Since October 11th, the dollar index has moved from 77.18 as high as 78.36; a move above 78.36 would increase the odds of the U.S. dollar having a multi-week countertrend rally. On October 13th with the S&P trading at 1,169, we listed 1,196 as a possible short-term upside target. The S&P 500's intraday high on October 25th was 1,196, which means we have entered a zone where the odds of a short-to-intermediate-term reversal have increased (emphasis on odds). Stock market breadth on October 26th was weak, adding to the list of concerns over the next few days. We recently mentioned some yellow flags in the gold market. Thus far, gold is holding up well enough that a push to new highs still could be in the cards. From a short-term bearish perspective, a break of the thin blue trendline below would increase our concerns about a correction in gold. The long-term fundamentals for gold remain sound.

Monitoring the Market's QE Reaction with Gold

What is quantitative easing? - Video: In part three of our six part series on quantitative easing, we examine Fed statements, writings, and publications related to the objectives of, and rationale behind, QE2. The analysis of some key Fed commentary on quantitative easing allows us to better understand the Fed's perspective relative to QE's possible impact on the financial markets, investing, the economy, interest rates, asset prices, and the wealth effect. Today's quantitative easing video also touches on the following:

  • Duration of QE program
  • Consumption
  • Investment
  • Ben Bernanke's "printing press" speech
  • U.S. dollar devaluation
  • Fiat / paper money system
  • Spending
  • Inflation
  • Dividend-paying securities (video player below)

Stock Market Blog - technical analysis

Stock Market Blog - technical analysis

Above is Part 3 in the QE series; previous QE videos:

 

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment