by confoundedinterest17
The Federal Reserve drives me crazy!
Thanks to Federal Reserve increases in their target rate, the 30-year mortgage rate has risen above 6%.
What drives me crazy about The Fed is their failure to removed monetary stimulus following the financial crisis of 2008 when they dropped their target rate to 25 basis points (0.25%) and began assets purchases (orange line). The Fed raises their target rate only once during Obama’s Presidency but then raised rates 8 times after Trump was elected President.
Now we are seeing The Fed NOT shrinking their balance sheet in a meaningful way. However M2 Money growth YoY (green line) has slowed to 5.2%.
While it is a good thing that The Fed is FINALLY reducing some of the monetary stimulus in place since 2008, the bad thing is that mortgage rates are rising rapidly.
The Fed’s quantheads are predicted to resume easing in March 2023.
