siegfried

Fed to the Rescue

Many banks and brokers were in danger of having massive write downs on their Q1 financial statements. The Fed's 28 day purchase of agency and non agency MBS will allow these banks to sell these securities at par and permit them to avoid this Q1 earnings devastation. If the banks use this window of opportunity to write down other deteriorated assets in their loan portfolio this may offer a "soft landing", otherwise today's Fed action just delays the day of reckoning.