No taper, no problem

The Federal Open Market Committee concluded one of its most anticipated meetings in a long time with the expected decision to keep its federal funds rate target near zero (0 – 0.25%) and, less expectedly, not to “taper,” i.e., announce that it would gradually reduce its monthly purchases of mortgage-backed securities and longer-term Treasury bonds. Those purchases are otherwise known as “quantitative easing” (QE).

From various market surveys and betting sites, it appeared that about half the market was expecting a taper. Just why is hard to figure. Excessive asset purchases by the Fed can be inflationary, but excessive is in the eye of the beholder, and inflation has been under, not over, the Fed’s target of 2%. There is the argument that these new and unusual QE policies are damaging to investor confidence, but they’re not that new anymore, and the investors in the stock market seem remarkably undamaged — the S&P 500 has more than doubled since early 2009, i.e., since shortly after the first round of QE was implemented. Then there is the opposite argument that QE has created a “sugar high” in the stock market and maybe the housing market, too. This last argument has to be taken seriously, in view of how the 2000s housing bubble was stoked in part by the Fed’s easy-money policies circa 2004, when economic recovery was well underway.

But not too seriously. The S&P 500 is only about 15% higher now than it was mid-2007; adjusting for inflation, it’s hardly any higher at all (and the jury’s still out over whether stocks, as opposed to housing, were a bubble in 2007). Moreover, corporate profits are at record highs, so the fundamentals look rather good. Home prices are rising fast, but they’re still at 2004 levels, and monthly mortgage payments are cheaper than rents. A true speculative bubble is when people are obviously overpaying for assets, especially when they do so knowingly, with the plan of selling to a greater sucker later on. Is there evidence of that here?

The evidence about the general state of the economy is much stronger, and the evidence is that it’s still pretty weak. In particular, employment — the indicator that the Fed is supposed to focus on, along with inflation — is dismal. The employment-to-population ratio is still under 76%, or 4 points below where it was before the crisis. (The graph below, by the way, is of the “prime-age” population, 25-54 year-olds; if it included 16-24 year-olds, it would look even worse.)

For more on unemployment and tape:

 

Tags: employment to population, fed, federal reserve, fomc, QE, quantitative easing, tapeheads, taper