Anti-Gravity Interest Rates

The U.S Federal Reserve has been cutting rates and flooding the markets with liquidity like there was no tomorrow. Of course, with the situation in the credit markets the way they are, for some people and Hedge Funds, there is no tomorrow.

We need to listen to what the Fed and the various economists are laying the blame for this situation on. No, not Mr. A.G., but on the duration of the near ZIRP - Zero Interest Rate Policy - and the ever so slow quarter-point-per-meeting normalization process.

When this emergency is over, and it will eventually be over, we can expect the Fed not to repeat the same mistake, if that is what it was. I would expect that when the Fed determines that the banks and money markets are once again functioning normally, they will normalize at a very proactive pace. We can hope that the Fed would give us a heads-up in their statements or even by a quarter point hike, but there is always the possibility that they will bull-in-the-china-shop it. By that I mean an inter-meeting half or full point hike, or even a full point hike at every meeting.

"Greed is good!" was a very famous line from a movie, "Wall Street - I think it was with Michael Douglas." The Fed now knows that gentle moves only feeds the greed as gentle moves only prolonged the fear. I expect that we will see 5% Fed Funds within a year of the calm, whenever that comes to pass.