The Futility of Liquidity

Though the Fed may be funding us cheaply,
Recovery's not rising steeply,
Until and unless
We consumers express
More demand again, broadly and deeply.

This was the message conveyed by Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher in a speech in Gainsville, Texas on Tuesday. While "quantitative easing is a necessary but insufficient tool to spark job creation," said Mr. Fisher, "employers will not deploy the cheap and abundant capital on hand toward job creation while there is so much uncertainty surrounding final demand for the goods and services they sell." This is actually a mild statement for the Dallas Fed president, who, while not a member of the Fed Open Market Committee, has consistently opposed its stimulative measures, arguing that quantitative easing and Operation Twist would have little impact against the resistance of regulatory burdens and tax uncertainty. In his latest remarks, he sounds almost Krugmanesque.

Message from the Fed

"To counter employment fragility,
We promote cheaper funding ability,
But investors who yearn
For a decent return
Must accept more default probability."

The Fed Open Market Committee announced the details of its latest stimulus program on Wednesday, and it's a doozy: under the 3rd round of quantitative easing, the Fed will purchase up to $40 billion a month of mortgage bonds and Treasuries, in addition to its $45 billion of monthly machinations under the Operation Twist program. This massive QE3 intervention is intended to lower long-term interest rates, as the Fed long ago did for short-term rates. Chairman Bernanke and colleagues hope to drive the 10-year T-note, currently yielding 1.75%, back to its July low of 1.38%.

For bond investors, all this rate compression inflames an already acute yield pressure. Those who want to earn an attractive yield must either shift into riskier bonds, or reduce their fixed income allocation in favor of stocks or other more volatile asset classes. As one CIO expressed it to the Wall Street Journal, retail investors "are practically walking around in a daze; they don't know what to do. There is no safe yield out there, so they are redefining what is safe, which is a dangerous thing to do."

Like We Did Last Summer

Said the Fed: "The economy's gist, again,
Is that lackluster data persist again;
In short, we have found
That it's coming unwound,
So come on now baby - let's twist again!"

The policy makers of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee conclude their latest two-day meeting this afternoon with a Ben Bernanke press conference at 2:15 EDT. Most observers expect that, in view of lingering economic weakness in the US, and the downside risks posed by the euro zone debt crisis, the Fed will continue with the so-called Operation Twist.

Under this groovy program of monetary stimulus, the Fed sells short-term Treasury bills and notes, and invests the proceeds in long-term bonds (either Treasuries or mortgage-backed). In so doing, Chairman Bernanke and his cohort hope to stimulate credit activity by holding down the cost of long-term borrowing. As we have seen, this program has had mixed results, in part due to many Americans' limited access to credit. Then again, the tools of the Fed are also limited.

Operation Twist

Said Bernanke, groovily dancing:
"Our economy needs more enhancing;
And the timing is apt
For the fiscally strapped
Whose mortgages beg refinancing."

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke hopes that the reserve bank's remake of its 1961 hit "Operation Twist" will cause the mortgage market to shake it up, baby.  So named because it coincided with the popular dance craze, the original Operation Twist attempted to lower long-term rates through the Fed's buying long-term Treasury bonds and selling short-term notes. Similarly, the 2011 cover version, announced after a two-day meeting of the Fed Open Market Committee, calls for the sale of $400 billion worth of notes with maturities of 3 years or less, the proceeds of which will be used to buy 10- to 30-year bonds. In addition, maturing mortgage bonds in the Fed's portfolio will be rolled over into new mortgage purchases, in a bid to support the still-ailing home loan market.