Massive Coordinated Rate Cuts By Central Banks Worldwide


So sayeth Reuters:

The U.S. Federal Reserve led a coordinated round of global official rate cuts on Wednesday, easing by a half-point, as did the European Central Bank, Bank of England and Swiss, Canadian and Swedish banks. In an attempt to stem unprecedented global market turmoil, the Fed cut its key federal funds lending rate by half a percentage point to 1.5 percent and also lowered its discount rate by the same amount to 1.75 percent.

The ECB also cut by a half-point to 3.75 percent as did the Bank of England, taking its rate to 4.5 percent.

Fear and panic, fear and panic. At least they are finally working together.


Sean Paul Kelley October 8, 2008 - 7:14am
( categories: Economics | Globalization | The Markets )

And the market says: bullshit. Dow futures down 259, S&P 500 futures down 31, NASDAQ futures down 46 at 9:21 AM eastern time.

dsquared October 8, 2008 - 9:22am

Fear and panic, fear and panic

Phobos and Deimos. They're not just Martian moons anymore.

pt bridgeport October 8, 2008 - 11:32am

The headline says "worldwide" but it isn't at all. It's just the US, Canada and a few EU countries. Basically, the "white" countries, approximately 1/6th of the global population. But they continue to think of themselves as the "world," since in their worldview only white people exist. They're desperately trying to make this out to be some "global" crisis (and it is in certain ways), but basically it's Corporate America and Corporate Europe and Japan. But making the focus "global" distracts attention from the fact that it's primarily the corrupt governments of the US and the UK that are at the core of the problem.

jonbrown October 8, 2008 - 4:18pm

eom

quax October 8, 2008 - 9:00pm

Longer Euribor rates INCREASED today:

Interest rate first, then relative change to yesterday:

Euribor 1 week (360) EUR 4,79% -4,56%
Euribor 1 month (360) EUR 5,126% -1,37%
Euribor 3 m (360) EUR 5,393% +0,00%
Euribor 6 m (360) EUR 5,448% +0,18%
Euribor 9 m (360) EUR 5,484% +0,49%
Euribor 12 m (360) EUR 5,512% +0,47%

TED-spread went over 4.1% early in the USA.

Singular October 9, 2008 - 1:13pm

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.