Why wouldn’t it be?
This is not government debt, this is simply Central Bank balance sheet per capita (for every person in that country), and the numbers are staggering …
Continue reading “How much are Central Bank balance sheets per capita (or per person in a country)?”
The Federal Reserve has unwound its balance sheet by 12% over the past year and reduced it to $3.81 trillion (from a peak of $4.5 trillion in 2017).
It has also increased interest rates since from 0.25% (range of 0% to 0.25%) in 2016 to 2.5% (range of 2.25% to 2.5%) now.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced during the week that it had decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds between 2.25% to 2.5%.
The Federal Reserve increased the target for the bank’s benchmark rate by 0.25% (to a range of 2.25% to 2.5%) at the end of December, the ninth rate rise since 2015. Rising benchmark interest rates are having little impact on mortgage and saving rates or interest margin of banks.
Interest Margin of Banks in the United States stood at 3.33% at the end of Q3 2018, up just 0.03% from Q2 2018 (3.3%) and up just 0.18% from Q3 2017 (3.15%).
The Federal Reserve has been unwinding or reducing its balance sheet. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet swelled from $900 billion at the start of 2008 to a peak of $4.5 trillion in 2017.
The reasons aren’t what you think …
Continue reading “Here’s why the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates could be a problem”
The Federal Reserve increased the target for the bank’s benchmark rate by 0.25% (to a range of 2% to 2.25%) last week, the eighth rate rise since 2015. Are rising interest rates really having any impact on mortgage or saving rates?
U.S. Consumer Inflation at 2.9% is the highest since February 2012. And it isn’t just energy prices causing inflation to soar. Core inflation (which is Consumer inflation excluding volatile energy and food prices) at 2.4% has risen at the fastest pace in a decade. Here is a chart for CPI inflation growth,
Since the financial crisis of 2008-2009 the difference between bank deposit growth and bank loan growth in the U.S. diverged in a big way, graph below,
