Anticipating Federal Funds Rate Slash, Fed Conducts Repo for Cash-Strapped Banks

In case you missed it, on Tuesday, the Federal Reserve conducted a repurchasing event - known in the business as a "repo" - to inject cash into the system, which had run low on reserves.

Essentially, the primary dealers, among them the nation's largest banks, found themselves a little short on cash and needed to sell some bonds back to the Fed. In all, the Fed took back $53 billion and the system survived a rare liquidity crunch. It was the first repo auction since the great Financial Crisis of 2008.

This kind of activity may not be so rare going forward. The Financial Times reports that the Fed is holding another repo auction on Wednesday morning, offering up $75 billion in cash in exchange for various types of bonds, most typically, Treasuries or Mortgage-backed securities (MBS).

What triggered the double-dip into repo-land is the unusually high volatility in bond markets, which have been whipsawed of late. The benchmark 10-year-note, for instance, has yielded as low as 1.46% and as high as 1.90% just this month, and currently sits at a yield of 1.81%. The high rate at which bonds are turned over by the primary dealers and others may have left some banks upside down, or wrong-footed, this week.

The second repo has taken place, ending before 8:30 am, Wednesday morning.

The results were less-than-encouraging going forward. The auction was oversubscribed by $5 billion, meaning somebody has a short-term cash flow problem. The Fed offered up $75 billion and $80 was bid, so somebody didn't get what they were seeking. $5 billion is a lot of money, no matter how you slice it. This is going to show up somewhere and it won't be pretty. Prepare for bank failures at an increasing rate.

Otherwise, the markets stay relatively calm on the surface, with futures modestly in the red. At 2:00 pm ET Wednesday, the FOMC will announce their policy directive, ending a two-day meeting. They are widely expected to decrease the federal funds rate by 25 basis points, from 2.00-2.25 to 1.75-2.00.

If the idea of a range, rather than a distinct point for the federal funds rate seems different, it is. The Fed used to just set the rate at a distinct point, like 2.50%, but now they issue a range. That change occurred in 2008, when they dropped the rate to zero, or actually, 0.00 to 0.25. The Fed didn't like the rate being exactly zero bacuse that would have sent a bad signal, so they changed to a range.

What really happened is that the global fiat currency economy broke in 2008. ZIRP and the various forms of QE were bandages when a splint and a cast were needed. The system is still broken, moreso than in 2008 and the injury, once a break, is now amplified with a fever, an infection, and the hospital is out of meds.

Tra-la-la.

At the Close, Tuesday, September 17, 2019:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 27,110.80, +33.98 (+0.13%)
NASDAQ: 8,186.02, +32.47 (+0.40%)
S&P 500: 3,005.70, +7.74 (+0.26%)
NYSE Composite: 13,131.41, +23.43 (+0.18%)