From ProfitConfidential.com
Stock Market: The Great Collapse Back to Reality Begins
Thursday, January 30th, 2014
By Michael Lombardi, MBA
“The trade” was very easy to do not long ago. Anyone with the basic knowledge of how money flows could have done it and profited.
Of course, I’m talking about the Federal Reserve “trade.” The investment strategy was straightforward: borrow money at low interest rates in the U.S., then invest the money for higher returns in emerging markets and bank the difference. If you could borrow money at three percent per annum in the U.S. and invest it for a six-percent return in emerging markets like India, why wouldn’t you?
The “trade” created a rush to emerging markets. And if you didn’t like the emerging markets, you could have invested in the stock market right here in the good old U.S.A. Again, borrowing money at a low rate to buy stocks from companies that were buying back their own stocks at the same time the Fed flooded the system with cold hard cash…how could you go wrong? (No wonder the rich got richer during the Fed’s quantitative easing programs.)
But, as I have written so many times, parties can only last for so long. Eventually, someone takes away the punch bowl. And from the looks of it, the Federal Reserve has pulled its own punch bowl.
In its statement yesterday after its two-day meeting, the Federal Reserve said, “…the Committee (has) decided to make a further measured reduction in the pace of its asset purchases…” (Source: Federal Reserve, January 29, 2014.)
In summary, the Federal Reserve will be buying $65.0 billion worth of bonds in February following its reduced $75.0 billion in purchases in January following its $85.0 billion-a-month bond buying in 2013.
The pullback on the Fed’s money printing, or what it refers to as “tapering,” is having its long-expected impact on stock prices—they’re falling like a rock. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down a massive 830 points (five percent) so far this year, gold (unexpectedly) is rising, and emerging markets are crashing.
Read more from ProfitConfidential.com >>
Stock Market: The Great Collapse Back to Reality Begins
Thursday, January 30th, 2014
By Michael Lombardi, MBA
“The trade” was very easy to do not long ago. Anyone with the basic knowledge of how money flows could have done it and profited.
Of course, I’m talking about the Federal Reserve “trade.” The investment strategy was straightforward: borrow money at low interest rates in the U.S., then invest the money for higher returns in emerging markets and bank the difference. If you could borrow money at three percent per annum in the U.S. and invest it for a six-percent return in emerging markets like India, why wouldn’t you?
The “trade” created a rush to emerging markets. And if you didn’t like the emerging markets, you could have invested in the stock market right here in the good old U.S.A. Again, borrowing money at a low rate to buy stocks from companies that were buying back their own stocks at the same time the Fed flooded the system with cold hard cash…how could you go wrong? (No wonder the rich got richer during the Fed’s quantitative easing programs.)
But, as I have written so many times, parties can only last for so long. Eventually, someone takes away the punch bowl. And from the looks of it, the Federal Reserve has pulled its own punch bowl.
In its statement yesterday after its two-day meeting, the Federal Reserve said, “…the Committee (has) decided to make a further measured reduction in the pace of its asset purchases…” (Source: Federal Reserve, January 29, 2014.)
In summary, the Federal Reserve will be buying $65.0 billion worth of bonds in February following its reduced $75.0 billion in purchases in January following its $85.0 billion-a-month bond buying in 2013.
The pullback on the Fed’s money printing, or what it refers to as “tapering,” is having its long-expected impact on stock prices—they’re falling like a rock. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down a massive 830 points (five percent) so far this year, gold (unexpectedly) is rising, and emerging markets are crashing.
Read more from ProfitConfidential.com >>
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