Federal Reserve

Illiquidity in the U.S. repo market spooked investors in the second half of 2019, and the U.S. Federal Reserve is considering a major policy change that could help remedy the situation. However, the potential changes could come with some major political fallout. What Is The Repo Market? The term...

The Federal Reserve Bank Of Kansas City recently published a report analyzing Colorado’s cannabis market and said the cannabis industry is going to maintain a growth tendency as long as public support for legalization spreads. The Fed branch doesn't expect the market to grow at the rate...

One of the potential threats many people pointed out looking ahead to 2020 was geopolitical instability.  What they might not have expected was for it to happen so suddenly here at the start of the year. Last night’s U.S. action in the Middle East sent crude prices spiking. Stock futures...

There are a few small signs of a turnaround in the U.S. oil patch but conditions are still expected to be challenging for operators and the companies that serve them in 2020. That's the general conclusion of the quarterly survey of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank's Energy Survey, a closely watched...

Imagine a country that replaces culture with computer code.  Instead of laws and police, it has smart contracts. Instead of a president, legislature or supreme court, it simply has another layer of computer code called “governance.”  Instead of money, it has digital...

Last week, investors got their last update of 2019 from the Federal Reserve. While most investors focused on interest rates and dot plots, one Fed-related metric appears to be heading lower once again heading into 2020. What Is The TED Spread? The TED spread is the difference between the yield on...

It seems that investors are breathing a sigh of relief after getting some closure on big issues last week, perhaps setting Wall Street up for smooth sailing into the holiday break. That would be a welcome difference from last year, when stocks had a pre-Christmas meltdown. Investors appear to still...

We’re seeing risk-on sentiment this morning tied to last week’s U.S./China phase 1 trade deal combined with strong economic data out of Asia overnight. The Euro Stoxx 600 hit an all-time intraday high, and here in the U.S. Nasdaq futures posted a new all-time high overnight and the S...

President Trump once again jolted markets with a Trade War tweet yesterday, sending equity indices soaring into new all-time highs and putting the hurt on bearish traders who wrote off the move as an attempt to juice a sluggish stock market open. Major news outlets reported that the U.S. and China...

The geopolitical waiting game is on. With the Fed meeting out of the way and rates unchanged, the countdown toward UK parliamentary results and a U.S. decision whether to impose promised new tariffs on China stand front and center as trading begins Thursday.  The UK election could help...

The Federal Reserve issued its monthly statement on Wednesday, and one of the primary areas of interest for investors is the Fed “dot plot” chart for 2020. What Is The Fed Dot Plot? Investors get monthly interest rate updates from the Fed throughout the year, but four times per year the...

Stay the course. After three rate cuts in a row, the Fed decided to leave things alone Wednesday and take a little time to see how things play out heading into the new year. That doesn’t necessarily mean this rate cutting cycle is necessarily over, however, because the futures market still...

In a move that was widely expected, the Federal Reserve maintained its target fed funds rate range of between 1.5% and 1.75% on Wednesday. The Fed also reassured investors the U.S. economy is strong and the labor market remains solid. “The Committee will continue to monitor the implications...

The Federal Reserve is expected to maintain its target interest rate range at between 1.5% and 1.75% on Wednesday afternoon when it releases its post-meeting statement at 2 p.m. Investors will be watching for any surprise changes to rates and indications from the Fed about where rates could be...

It was almost a year ago when a Fed meeting helped send stock indices plunging into bear or near-bear territory. The Fed’s decision back then to raise rates for a fourth time in 2018 put new interest rate fear into an already shaky market. By Christmas Eve, the S&P 500 Index (SPX) was...