H L Quist - The Myth Buster

Our FEATURE today focuses on the lifeblood of the US economy-the Federal Reserve Monetary Policy. The perception to most citizens is that the Fed is moving from a policy of Quantitative Easing to one of Quantitative Tightening which is resulting in higher interest rates. NOT as simple as that says Matt Klein in a feature article in the October 1st issue of Barron's Magazine. He says that the Fed has raised rates 2 points since the end of 2015 whereas The Bank of International Settlements (all the world's banks central bank) says that it has already tightened policy by the equivalent of 5.1 points since the "shadow rate trough"in May 2014. To add to the confusion Klein says that US corporate borrowing costs have plunged during the past 2 years which has fueled the stock market boom and Fed Reserve Gov Ms Lael Brainard says the Fed now needs to "tighten a lot more" to get the results the officials want. The question is, what does the Fed want? Other topics include:  The "Generals" take a big hit, Tech shar