Tag: FED

The Fed's Magic Number May Signal The End Of The Dividend Boom

Posted on by admin

This article originally appeared on StreetAuthority

With investors clamoring for dividend stocks, companies have responded by instituting large hikes in their payouts, which has led to the doubly good fortune of rising income streams and rising share prices.

Of course, every major change in the investing landscape must come to an end. Tech stocks were all the rage in the 1990s during the dot-com boom -- until they crashed spectacularly. Housing-related stocks surged in the past decade, culminating in the Great Recession of 2008. And the mania for dividend growth will surely cool eventually (though without the dramatic bang that tech and housing did).

The question for many: When will the dividend era wind down? Continue reading "The Fed's Magic Number May Signal The End Of The Dividend Boom" →

Macro Sleight of Hand is Working, for Now

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Right in plain site, the Federal Reserve is doing this to the US money supply. It is a hockey stick with the blade pointing up, but will one day turn into a big, bloated chicken and come home to roost. The Fed’s global counterparts continue apace with inflation as well.

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Meanwhile, economic data like M2′s velocity would give out of control monetarists free license to provide more of what they say is good for us, because newly printed money is not getting out into the economy to a sufficient degree. ‘If we can just inflate a little more’ think our myopic bureaucrats, ‘maybe that will finally do it. Continue reading "Macro Sleight of Hand is Working, for Now" →

Minutes show Fed backs stimulus through midyear

Posted on by The INO.com Team

A majority of Federal Reserve policymakers want to continue extraordinary bond purchases to help boost the economy at least through the middle of the year, according to minutes from the Fed's last meeting released Wednesday.

But many members indicated they want to slow and eventually end the program soon after that, as long as the the job market and economy show sustained improvement. The Fed's purchases of about $85 billion a month in Treasury and mortgage bonds are intended to lower long-term interest rates and support more borrowing and spending.

The minutes of the Fed's March 19-20 meeting were released at 9 a.m. EDT  five hours earlier than planned after the Fed inadvertently sent them a day earlier to congressional staffers and lobbyists. Continue reading "Minutes show Fed backs stimulus through midyear" →

Does the Fed Think Old People Are Really that Stupid?

Posted on by The INO.com Team

By Dennis Miller

The Federal Reserve is, of course, a bank. So after it has a meeting, it issues a statement outlining the discussion – a "bank statement." Hmm... Now that I think about it, that must be where the acronym "BS" comes from.

Notwithstanding what we read and hear, when Congress established the Federal Reserve as a central bank 100 years ago, its primary purpose was to protect the banking system. The Federal Reverse shifted risk from the private sector to the public, and through the slow devaluation of the dollar, the cost of this shift fell on the average Joe rather than on banking tycoons. Today, an entire generation is paying for this system with a good portion of their life's savings.

I pride myself on explaining complex financial situations in everyday language. However, when it comes to the Federal Reserve, I readily admit that I am sometimes befuddled. I used to watch Alan Greenspan testify before Congress when he was Chairman of the Fed, and I often ended up asking myself, "What did he just say?" The Fed's code and doublespeak is Greek to me, as it is to most folks. Continue reading "Does the Fed Think Old People Are Really that Stupid?" →

Today's Video Newsletter: The Fed meets today and tomorrow … what to expect

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Hello traders everywhere! Adam Hewison here, co-founder of MarketClub with your mid-day market update for Tuesday, the 19th of March.

What Will The Fed Do?
The Fed will be meeting today and tomorrow to decide the future course of action for interest rates. I suspect the blowup in Cyprus, which could be the tip of the iceberg, will be weighing on policy makers' minds and that the Fed will hold steady. The Fed is on a tricky course to try to juice up the market and the economy with low interest rates. The strategy of keeping interest rates low and pumping money into the system to the tune of $4 billion every trading day has many detractors, who claim the cost of doing this is just too expensive and the nation cannot afford it. It would seem to this market observer that the Fed and the market are both addicted to cheap money. When interest rates begin to rise, and they will, expect to see a radical change in sentiment towards the equity markets as inflation will once again rear its value robbing head to a whole new generation of investors. Continue reading "Today's Video Newsletter: The Fed meets today and tomorrow … what to expect" →