Posts Tagged ‘Jackson Hole’
August 24, 2021
There is a wonderful song from the tumultuous 1960s by the band Buffalo Springfield that is so apropos for the financial markets over the last two weeks (staying away from Kabul). The lyrics for the first two verses describe the situation for investors as we approach the tectonic plates of monetary policy that have provided the Kansas City Fed Symposium at Jackson Hole with its heightened significance. Several keynote speeches revealing policy changes have been delivered to this August group.
“There’s something happening here ,But what it is ain’t exactly clear
there’s a man with a printing press over there, telling me I got to beware
“There’s battle lines being drawn,nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking there minds,Getting so much resistance from behind”
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Tags:Federal Reserve, FOMC, Jackson Hole, Jerome Powell, liquidity, QE, standing repo facility, tapering
Posted in Fed | 8 Comments »
August 22, 2017
This is the topic of discussion for this week’s meeting in Jackson Hole. For the Federal Reserve system, this is a statement, but I raise it as a question. A long-held theme of this BLOG has been that what the Federal Reserve, ECB, BOJ, BOE and other central banks promote as certainty supported by mathematical models I maintain IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.
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Tags:Alan Jay Levinovitz, BOE, BOJ, ECB, Fed, Gold, Jackson Hole, Kansas Southern Railroad
Posted in Central Banks, Gold | 13 Comments »
August 27, 2013
At Jackson Hole there was no Ben Bernanke so therefore no policy announcements as in August 2010 when the famous PORTFOLIO BALANCE CHANNEL (PBC) speech signalled a major shift in Fed policy. Last year was similar as the Fed Chairman used Jackson Hole to alert the market to another round of QE. The most senior Fed official was Janet Yellen and she served more as a panel moderator. This was no place to stake out Vice Chairman Yellen’s claim to the chairmanship. So the discussions of the week were as always, esoteric and academic. But the key take away: There were several papers delivered by acclaimed academics who disagreed with the FED‘s policy of large-scale asset purchases and quantitative easing. Therefore, the conclusion is that the FED‘s present policy is highly theoretical and not based on a SCIENTIFIC proof and the entire basis of QE is open to critical analysis. The talking heads want to believe that TAPERING has a certain outcome. By definition, theoretical outcomes are theoretical and based on probabilities.
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Tags:Angela Merkel, Ben Bernanke, CDU, Fed, German elections, Greece, Jackson Hole, Janet Yellen, natural interest rate, portfolio balance channel, QE, SPD, Syria, zero output gap
Posted in Fed, Germany | 6 Comments »
May 14, 2013
Notes From Underground will resume Thursday night. I wanted to issue an old piece from the day after the Jackson Hole Symposium of August 2012. It refreshes where were then and looking at the world now. Yes, we’ve reissued this piece before, but once you reread, you’ll see it’s still wildly relevant.
I also want to remind my readers: Bernard Connolly will be on with Rick Santelli this Thursday morning on the Santelli Exchange. It takes place between 10-10:30AM CST. Enjoy (and click on link below to read the post)
Notes From Underground: Jackson Hole is Running on Empty
Tags:Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve, Jackson Hole
Posted in Fed, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
September 3, 2012
The Bernanke speech did not surprise readers of NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND as Bernanke did not promise any new stimulus plan but spent most of the speech recalling the successes of the FED’S extraordinary efforts to stimulate the economy and prevent a disastorous deflationary period from gaining traction in a debt-ladened financial system. The initial market response was a selloff in the precious metals as the ALGOS reacted to a no new stimulus headline with, “risk off” and after reading that the headlines were cursory and misleading, reversed and the GOLD AND OTHER RISK ON ASSETS WENT INTO FULL RALLY MODE.
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Tags:Bernanke, Bullard, Charles Evans, China, Fed, Gold, IOER, iron ore, Jackson Hole, Mary Schapiro, Michael Woodford, nominal GDP, RBA, SEC, U.S. 2-year note
Posted in Fed | 6 Comments »
August 27, 2012
For the record, the Jackson Hole meeting actually takes place in the lodge at Grand Teton National Park. Again, the Ben Bernanke of QE fame WILL NOT OFFER UP ANOTHER ROUND OF QE AT THE JACKSON HOLE SYMPOSIUM. To do so would let the scallywags that OCCUPY WASHINGTON TO FINISH ANOTHER YEAR IN OFFICE WITH A GOLD MEDAL FOR IRRESPONSIBILITY. Chairman Bernanke, the WALL STREET MACHINE is hoping that you provide another dose of LIQUIDITY. Do not perform as OLD FAITHFUL and deliver. Force the hand of ELECTED OFFICIALS to actually make a serious attempt to deal with their constitutionally prescribed responsibility, FISCAL POLICY.
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Tags:Bernanke, Bundesbank, Draghi, ECB, Jackson Hole, Jens Weidmann, Michael Woodford, QE, risk assets
Posted in Central Banks, ECB, Fed | 13 Comments »
August 16, 2012
It seems that the ECB president has for the moment prevailed in a similar way as his MIT cohort Ben Bernanke has been “successful” with his famed Portfolio Balance Channel. Remember, it was Jackson Hole speech of August 2010 in which Chairman Bernanke laid out his view about the importance of the PBC, which was previously referred to by Alan Greenspan as the “wealth effect.” President Draghi has steepened the Spanish and Italian curves by threatening to purchase short-term debt and thus driving the Spanish and Italian 2-YEAR NOTE YIELDS more than 300 basis points lower.
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Tags:Ben Bernanke, Dax index, Gold-backed bonds, IMF, Italian 2-yr notes, Jackson Hole, Lagard, Mario Draghi, Merkel, money markets, portfolio balance channel, QE, Rajoy, S&P 500, Spanish 2-yr notes, William Dudley
Posted in Central Banks, Europe, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
August 25, 2011
Jobless claims, GDP, consumer sentiment … all meaningless as the Bernanke speech at 9 a.m. CST takes precedence. The financial world awaits to hear if the FED CHAIRMAN will deliver another gift like last August’s Portfolio Balance Channel speech. While QE2 did not commence until November, the groundwork was laid in August and the plan delivered at the September FOMC meeting. The markets well understood that the intent of Jackson Hole precipitated the equity market rally that began in September.
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Tags:Bernanke, Dollar, ECB, EFSF, Fed, FOMC, GDP, Gold, Jackson Hole, portfolio balance channel, QE2, QE3, Ron Paul, Trichet
Posted in ECB, Federal Reserve | 4 Comments »
August 23, 2011
The great economist and bon vivant, Joseph Schumpeter, described the failure of low interest rates to stimulate the animal spirits of businessmen as “PUSHING ON A STRING.” In paraphrasing this concept, high interest rates can stop an entrepreneur from borrowing but ultra-low rates cannot stimulate investment if there is no expected return higher than the cost of capital. Some pundits continue to insist that banks aren’t lending while many of the banks insist that there is no business or consumer demand. It is driving the Bernanke FED crazy that with interest rates at zero, capital investment is just not reaching levels high enough to add jobs.
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Tags:Bernanke, bonds, central banks, Dollar, double dip, Equities, Euro, euro cross rates, European banks, FDIC, Fed, Jackson Hole, Joseph Schumpeter, PIIGS, Pushing on a String
Posted in Currency, Europe, Federal Reserve | 12 Comments »
August 21, 2011
The week ahead will be waiting for the words of wisdom from Ben Bernanke and his take on where the U.S. is at and where the economy is possibly going. THERE WILL BE NO QE3. IT IS NOT BECAUSE OF RICK PERRY BUT BECAUSE QE2 IS A FAILURE BY ANY METRIC. THE YIELD CURVE IS FLATTER; UNEMPLOYMENT HASN’T IMPROVED; AND THE BELOVED PORTFOLIO BALANCE CHANNEL IS A NON-EVENT– AS MEASURED BY THE S&P/BOND RATIO–FOR THAT BELOVED INDICATOR IS BACK TO WHERE IT WAS AT LAST YEAR’S BERNANKE BLOCKBUSTER SPEECH. What did we get for the $600 BILLION in asset purchases. I know things would’ve been much worse. The FED has locked itself in to a two-year zero rate policy so it makes Bernanke’s task very difficult as the FED has expended a great deal of good will and has very little to show for its effort.
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Tags:animal spirits, Bernanke, debt union, Dollar, EFSF, European, Fed, Gold, Jackson Hole, Merkel, portfolio balance channel, QE2, QE3, Sarkozy, sovereign debt, stability union
Posted in Currency, Europe, United States | 12 Comments »