Federal Reserve

This decision will rank only second after his selection of the new Supreme Court justice in importance for the country, the economy, and your portfolio. The betting is that he will pick three monetary doves who will keep interest rates lower for longer, continuing the steroid injections of free money for the economy. The ghost of libertarian Ayn Rand will no longer be welcome on this board. Setting up a layup for the 2012 election.

Bill Fleckenstein has kept a hawk’s eye on what the government does to our economy. Most recently, Bill wrote an excellent article describing the new health care law as “the great health care bailout.”

I caught up with Bill to discuss three hot topics:

1) How the new health care law will affect our economy;

2) Whether the Fed has painted itself into a corner of low interest rates; and,

3) Whether the foreign debt crisis are an omen for what’s coming to the US.

As part of yesterday's hearing with Ben Bernanke before the House Financial Services Committee, Ron Paul provided the following statement in which he blasts the Fed's ever-increasing cluelessness over monetary policy and its disastrous Catch 22 implications: "the Fed only sees what is seen, the superficial results of its policies, and not what is unseen, the effects of its monetary intervention throughout the economy. Monetary inflation leads to malinvestment and causes the boom phase of the business cycle. Once the malinvestment is realized the bust phase occurs, and these malinvested resources need to be liquidated in order for the economy to recover. But the Fed actively works to prevent this liquidation and does everything in its power to continue inflating in order to prolong the boom. The first act of intervention begets the second and subsequent interventions, each bigger than the first, as each economic bust gets larger and more severe." As the only thing that currently matters for the economy, for LBO rumors, and for stock picking in general is the overabundance of liquidity, one wonders to what rabbit holes the Fed's push for central planning of the US economy will eventually lead us: "The Soviet Union's economy failed because of its central planning, and the United States economy will suffer the same fate if we continue down the path toward more centralized control."

The ongoing troubles at the GSEs are no secret: it is public knowledge that Fannie had a 5.38% delinquency rate at December, while Freddie just passed the 4% threshold in January; both continue to rise rapidly each month. The fact that the mortgage-bond spread has just hit a record tight is merely an ongoing artifact of the Fed's endless meddling in the mortgage market, with the sole purpose of keeping rates artificially low, and preventing banks from being forced to take massive writedowns on their entire loan book. This is all well known. What, however, seems to have escaped public attention is what the impact of these delinquencies is on the one largest holder of Mortgage Backed Securities, the Federal Reserve. What also seems to have escaped the public is that the Fed is now the world's largest bank, with total assets near $2.3 trillion. We provide a weekly update of the Fed's balance sheet and while we briefly note the liability side, our, and everyone else's, attention, is traditionally focused on the asset side. Yet a more detailed look at the liability side reveals something very troubling, specifically that the Fed's capital, i.e. equity buffer, which as of most recently was $53.3 billion (a comparable metric for plain vanilla banks is their equity buffer, or Tier 1 Capital, or however the FASB wants to define it on any given day when it is covering up massive capital shortfalls) is in fact negligible and could well be substantially negative, if the Fed were to account for the rapidly rising level of delinquencies in its one largest asset holdings: the $1.027 trillion in settled MBS. And while there is no possibility of a run on the Fed, the reality is that the Fed now likely runs with a negative real capital balance, meaning that the US Federal Reserve is now essentially insolvent.

Looks like Tom Hoenig's dissension at the recent FOMC vote is starting to generate some serious traction. A paper just released by V.V. Chari of the Minneapolis Fed, "Thoughts on the Federal Reserve's exit strategy" goes so far as blasting the Fed for demonstrating Goldman Sachs-like "hubris" courtesy of the persistent lowest common denominator resolution to every crisis, namely Bernanke's redux of MLK "I have a dream" speech for the 21st century, in the Chairman's "we have a printing press" thesis. "...The Fed differs from private firms and emerging markets in that it can “create” money to finance its debts. And indeed, that ability may well lead to hubris on the part of policymakers—similar to that seen among financial managers in the current crisis who were clearly overconfident in their ability to obtain financing. Regardless of such self- assurance on the part of policymakers, if market participants lose confidence in the Fed’s ability to obtain funds from lenders, the Fed would have to pay very high interest rates to obtain short-term debt. A self-fulfilling, high-inflation equilibrium in which expectations that the Fed will pursue lax monetary policy because banks demand a high-inflation premium will lead banks to demand that high-inflation premium." - Minneapolis Fed

The fed has completed $169.1 billion of $175 billion in the agency MBS program: there is just 3% of Agency dry powder remaining (no new purchases in the week ending March 3). The Fed has completed $1.22 trillion of its $1.25 trillion MBS debt purchase program, or 98%, through March 3 (including the $10 billion announced today). There is now just $35 billion left in Quantitative Easing capacity.

Other than that how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

The following just released video from the Cleveland Fed, in which the Fed explains the workings of the Fed, does not need much commentary, suffice to say that it likely came to you courtesy of the production and direction talents of Goldman's PR group. It appears the video is supposed to be some form of user friendly PR approach created by the same people that gave you Enron. Alas, some of the biggest roles of the Fed are sadly unaccounted for. We leave it up to you, dear readers, to uncover just what these are but here are some suggestions: buying everything in perpetuity, keeping Goldman solvent in perpetuity, keeping the Fed's shady dealings with other Central banks and primary dealers hidden from the public's eye in perpetuity, keeping fed funds rate at (or below?) zero or below in perpetuity, etc, you get the picture.

The Federal Reserve's assets were at $2.27 trillion as of February 25, jumping by $6 billion sequentially. Securities held outright: $1,975 billion (an increase of $62.6 billion MoM, resulting from $59 billion increase in MBS and $3 billion in Agency Debt), or $8 billion increase sequentially. The fed has completed $169.1 billion of $175 billion in the agency MBS program, or a 97% completion, and 96% complete with purchases of Agencies. The Fed has completed $1.21 billion of its $1.25 billion MBS debt purchase program, or 97%, through February 25. There is just $45 billion left in QE. Net borrowings: $103 billion. The monetary base increased by $81 billion in the past fortnight to $2.14 trillion. The ratio of total assets to Monetary Base declined slightly to 1.06x. Float, liquidity swaps, Maiden Lane and other assets: $191 billion. The CPFF program was at $7.7 billion. FX liquidity swaps are now at zero: we are carefully keeping an eye on this metric as any increase presently would indicate banks are again experiencing a dollar funding shortage. Maiden Lane I and Maiden Lane II increased and were $27.2 and $15.5 billion, while Maiden Lane III as always continues pretending it has value and came flat at $22.4 billion.

I think I’d shoot myself. [Laughing] I don’t think I’d go to work in the morning. If I were Chairman of the Federal Reserve I would let free market forces unfold. I would let rates rise to where they should rise. These are not normal rates that we have now. I would have to raise rates. I’d have to do it over time. - Fred Hickey

With Geoffrey Batt

With everyone's attention drawn to each and every step the IMF takes, while contemplating the imminent Greek bailout, which without exception and with the grace of a drunk 3-ton bull in a China store, leaves nothing but annihilation and currency boards in its wake, is the popular opinion once again getting the Houdini treatment courtesy of the mainstream media? One thing learned over the past year is that everything is a distraction for something else, and that something else, quite usually without failure, ends up being the Marriner Eccles building on Constitution Avenue in D.C. What we refer to is disclosure from a paper written by none other than the Maestro Jr, in 2004, titled "Conducting Monetary Policy at Very Low Short-Term Interest Rates" (oddly appropriate). In this paper, Bernanke discusses not only the possibility of purchasing corporate assets (bonds and stocks), but emphasizes that one other security class which the Fed may be inclined to acquire under conditions such as those today, and has an explicit authority to do so, are foreign government bonds. After singlehandedly rescuing every Wall Street bonus in the prior year, is the Fed now the shadow backstop for the Greek economy as well?

Cutting straight to the chase, and to Bernanke's musings:

The Federal Reserve's balance just hit another record high, at $2.29 trillion, jumping by a whopping $54 billion sequentially (the biggest weekly increase since mid-November). Securities held outright: $1,967 billion (an increase of $60.9 billion MoM, resulting from $56 billion increase in MBS and $5 nillion in Agency Debt), or a huge $53.6 billion increase sequentially. The fed is now 95% complete with its purchases of MBS, and 96% complete with purchases of Agencies. The Fed has completed $167.2 billion of its $175 billion agency debt purchase program through February 17. The Fed's MBS total is now $1.188 trillion, and by the end of the first quarter of 2010, the Fed will have purchased $1.25 trillion.

The Federal Reserve's balance remained at an all time high of $2.233 Trillion in assets, after a $3 billion increase in MBS and Agency purchases week over week. Securities held outright: $1,913 billion (an increase of $57 billion MoM, resulting from $52 billion increase in MBS and $5 billion in Agency Debt), or a $3 billion increase sequentially. The fed is now 95% complete with its purchases of MBS. Net borrowings: $127 billion. The monetary base increased by $50 billion in the past fortnight to $2.06 trillion. The ratio of total assets to Monetary Base remained constant at 1.08x, elevated from the historical ratio of 1.00x. Custody foreign holdings increased by $9.3 billion to $2,956 billion. A maturity profile of the Fed's assets indicates a skewed maturity distribution. Of a total of $2 trillion in dated assets, $132 billion mature in under 15 days, $226 billion in under 1 year, and $976 billion in under ten years.

"A handful of high-frequency trading firms accounted for an estimated 70 percent of overall trading volume on U.S. equities markets in 2009. One firm with such a computerized system traded over 2 billion shares in a single day in October 2008, amounting to over 10 percent of U.S. equities trading volume for the day. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this technology-dependent trading environment, and how are its risks controlled?... The high-frequency trading environment has the potential to generate errors and losses at a speed and magnitude far greater than that in a floor or screen-based trading environment." - Chicago Federal Reserve

• Securities
  held outright: $1,913 billion (an increase of $67 billion MoM,
  resulting from $64 billion increase in MBS and $3 billion in
  Agency Debt), or a $7 billion increase sequentially. 
• Net
  borrowings: $165 billion. Number for the January 28th week has not been updated.
• Float,
  liquidity swaps, Maiden Lane and other assets: $196
  billion. The CPFF program was was at $11.2 billion, another fresh all time low. FX liquidity swaps declined
  by $1.075 billion to practically 0. Maiden Lane I
  and Maiden Lane II were at $26.8 and $15.4
  billion, while Maiden Lane III continues pretending it has value and came at $22.5 billion.