Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Can the U.S. Fed Drop Interest Rates Below 0%?

Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates Feb 12, 2016 - 12:33 PM GMT

By: EWI

Interest-Rates This question is not as preposterous as it may seem.

For the financial markets, the biggest event of the week starts tomorrow: On Wednesday and Thursday (Feb. 10-11) Fed chair Janet Yellen will appear before Congress to deliver her semi-annual Monetary Policy Report.

"It's huge." That's how one strategist put it this morning, in a CNBC interview about the importance of Yellen's testimony.


Why are all eyes on Yellen? Maybe because by now, almost everyone has forgotten how powerless the Fed appeared in 2007-2009, when none of its measures could stop the financial crisis. Despite the recent market chaos, six years of rising stock prices reaffirmed the notion that the Fed can move mountains. "As the Fed goes, so do the markets" is the current mantra -- so, on Wednesday and Thursday, analysts will be listening carefully: Will Yellen mention the ongoing market turmoil?

If not, then the Fed is focusing on "the positives" like the U.S. jobs and GDP numbers, which makes another interest rates hike likely in March. If Yellen does mention the "turmoil," then the Fed is worried about the markets, making a March hike unlikely.

Basically, it comes down to "rate hike now" -- or "rate hike later." But there is the third option.

A rate cut. And not just any cut, but a rate cut below zero.

Crazy? Look at Europe and Japan, where negative interest rates are already in place. As our December Financial Forecast wrote,

"...yields on more than one-third of all euro-area government bonds...are now below zero.

"A buyer of these bonds at par who holds them to maturity is guaranteed to lose money."

Can this happen here? Yes, says Bloomberg:

"Fed Chair Janet Yellen said in September that negative rates weren’t a main policy option, but that officials would evaluate the approach if needed."

Translation: "Fed officials have said negative rates are possible, though not probable any time soon."

What could push the Fed to make a move like that? Our new, February Financial Forecast explains:

"Successive rounds of quantitative easing by central banks along with various other monetary tricks were all designed to spark inflation; all they utterly failed.

[That's hard to argue with: Europe is officially in a deflation, and the Fed has been unable to push inflation up to its goal of 2% for several years. -- Ed.]

"The latest gambit to grab the fancy of central bankers is negative interest rates. Japan [has just joined] the European Central Bank, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland in charging depositors to hold their money.

"These actions confirm that deflationary forces are intensifying, consistent with our long-standing forecast. It may seem outlandish to think so at the moment in light of the U.S. Federal Reserve's recent decision to raise short-term interest rates, but deepening deflation will eventually force the U.S. central bank to go down this path, too."

If the Fed indeed is forced to reverse course and drop interest rates below zero, what investment will be a "safe place"?

Read our new report, Risk ON? Risk OFF? Find Out Where Your Money Lies. The editors of our Financial Forecast Service, Steve Hochberg and Pete Kendall, have been tracking a "steady global shift to greater financial conservatism over the last 18 months." They have just published this new report detailing all of their findings. Read Their Complete Report >>


This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Can the Fed Drop Interest Rates Below 0%?. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

About the Publisher, Elliott Wave International
Founded in 1979 by Robert R. Prechter Jr., Elliott Wave International (EWI) is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in