Crew Capital Management Thoughts on Investment

Welcome to the Crew Capital Management Thoughts on Investment blog. At Crew Capital, investment education is key to how we work with our clients. We hope our conversation and analysis entice you to think further on your investment strategies and planning. For further discussion, please contact us at rjung@crewcapital.com

Thank you!
Robert F. Jung, CFA CPA*

*CPA inactve

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Potential Future Fed Action

Fed might need to ramp up asset purchases as economy falls Federal Reserve policymakers might need to accelerate their purchases of assets, including mortgage securities, as the job market and economy continue to decline. Fed watchers are concerned that the central bank's balance sheet has fallen 17% since its peak in December. "It takes massive balance-sheet expansion to generate significant easing in financial conditions," said Andrew Tilton, an economist at Goldman Sachs. "More needs to be done." The Federal Open Market Committee meets in Washington this week. Bloomberg (17 Mar.)

Drop in gilt yields might prompt Fed to buy Treasuries: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has discussed the idea of buying government securities to boost the supply of money, but Bank of England Governor Mervyn King actually made the move. The results have been encouraging, as yields on 10-year gilts dropped to at least a two-decade low. "The BoE is providing an actual experiment in answering some of the concerns that the Fed has about the effectiveness" of the strategy, said Laurence Meyer, former governor of the Fed. Bloomberg (16 Mar.)

The bottom has dropped out of railcar loadings. They were down 10.2% y/y at the beginning of March, based on 26-wa, the steepest decline since the late 1980s. There’s a relatively tight relationship between total railcar loadings (using 26-wa) and the S&P 500 Transportation Index, which remains in bearish territory. The recession is getting worse according to the railcar loadings data, and there isn’t much reason to expect that the Transports will provide a bull market signal for stock prices in general. Yardeni (17 Mar.)

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