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Comment by criley2 | Hacker News Reader

"The stimulus mode is a permanent regime now"

As a general FYI to those reading -- please fact check before commenting.

The Federal Reserve's quantitative easing program ended on Oct 29th, 2014 (538 days ago!) It is difficult to assert that a program which ended over 500 days ago is permanent.

Additionally, one may be willing to assert that "ZIRP is permanent regime now" too, to tack onto the culture that central banking has entered a new era.

For anyone who did not see that news, ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) ended on Dec 15, 2015 with a rise, and is currently believed to rise again at the next meeting.

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Yes it's permanent. Interest rates are still super low, meaning companies can still take on debt to buy back their stock. The effect of quantitive easing remains until interest rates start going up and the Fed start buying government bonds from the banks.

Interest rates have already started going up.

They went up once and the fed is signaling a lot of caution. The earlier analyst consensus was 4 hikes this year .. it is down to 2. The latest commentary I'm hearing says normal rates by 2019 .. which is psycho IMHO.

>meaning companies can still take on debt to buy back their stock

Please explain the problem here. You're acting like there's some big deception imposed on the public due to companies choosing to return capital to shareholders via one specific mechanism. As if somehow they're buying back stock and "fooling" people into thinking they're making more money or something, and stock prices are irrationally rising. The buybacks, earnings, financials are all open for everyone to read. It's evident by some of your commentary that you can't be bothered.

If you don't agree with the price that other people are willing to sell for shares in this market, you are more than welcome to take the other side of that trade and sell into every buyer on the planet. I'm sure you're not doing that.

Shorting a stock isn't always practical. Stock buybacks can be deceptive if a company buys back stocks with debt and doesn't have proper cashflow to pay it off. Non-technical investors see the stock going up and keep piling more cash in. If you think markets are perfect, you have a lot to learn my friend.

>Shorting a stock isn't always practical.

Nor is it remotely the only way to assume a bearish position.

>Stock buybacks can be deceptive if a company buys back stocks with debt and doesn't have proper cashflow to pay it off.

You can't tell the cash flow and debt levels from the financial reporting? You don't account for this in your valuation? Where is the deception? Report it to the SEC.

>Non-technical investors see the stock going up and keep piling more cash in.

An equivalent number of people are "pulling cash out". A stock trade is just that: a trade. Again, what makes you a better judge of the "correct" price than those actually making the deal?

>If you think markets are perfect, you have a lot to learn my friend

Not sure where that comes from, but you're right, I do have more to learn. That said, it looks like I'm a few levels up on you (and far less confident in my ability to predict anything).

What they ended is increasing their balance sheet. They are still rotating into new debt as old debt is maturing so they have not actually rolled back their old QE programs- they just have not increased them.

Just take things in in a perspective, not just based on the latest quarter news:

http://b-i.forbesimg.com/jessecolombo/files/2014/01/united-s...

http://moneymorning.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/09...

http://www.naic.org/images/capital_markets_archive/2013/1305...

whether they do a token 0.5% hike (they probably won't), it's obvious that something very basic has changed, and quite likely irreversibly.

Why did you link three pictures of the same graph?

They also don't support your hypothesis that something has changed irreversibly.

Raising the interest rate more than 0.5% would have likely had a negative impact. It's very likely the Fed will raise it again later this year.

Its not because interest rate is just slightly above zero that its not cheap anymore.

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