Monday, May 19, 2014

Fed's Rate-Change System Up for Revamp - WSJ

A change is likely to occur to the way that the Fed changes interest rates, something that has not been done in decades. Below are two major concerns for the Fed when deciding how to approach this situation:

"One worry: As Fed officials move toward a new system, trading in the fed funds market could dry up and make the fed funds rate unstable. That could unsettle $12 trillion worth of derivatives contracts called interest rate swaps that are linked to the fed funds rate, posing problems for people and institutions using these instruments to hedge or trade."
"Another worry: If they make overnight reverse repo trades more appealing than bank reserves, they could drive activity in short-term lending markets away from banks and toward unregulated money funds."
This article describes that the Fed are in unchartered grounds right now, however the they are confident that they can control and tighten credit conditions in the U.S. What are your thoughts? 

1 comment:

  1. Woah.. these people are playing with trillions in the same way I play around with a penny. I honestly don't think this might be the right time to experiment with such new idea. But the people at Fed are far more intelligent than me, I hope they know what they are doing.

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