Der USA Bären-Thread
Natürlich kann keine große Bank pleite gehen. Und sollte die DBK trotzdem über die Wupper gehen, wird sie von der CBK gerettet.
;o)
Diese Aussage lässt sich in ihrer Absolutheit nicht halten, Metro! Der Beginn der Leitzinssenkungen 1969, 1974, 1981 und 1990 führte zu keinen auffälligen Rallies an den Aktienmärkten wie Anfang 2001.
Du kannst mich ja berichtigen wenn ich was falsch deute.
Der RSI ist am überverkauften Bereich bei 30 nach oben abgeprallt so wie
in 1998,2001 und 2002 und wir haben vom Top bei 140 bis zum Low bei 50 ca.65%
verloren.
Heißt das nun die Ratio aus S&P/VIX steigt wieder was bezogen auf die Spikes
in den Jahren 1998, 2001 und 2002 steigende Kurse im S&P bedeutet?
ABER nun sagt selbst im Bärenmarkt von 2000-03 die RSI-Wochenstandard-Einstellung das Spikes im Chart von -60% bis -70% nicht sofort zu einer Abwärts-Fortsetzung auf kurzfristiger Wochenebene führen was zumindest das Downpotential für die nächsten 2-3 Wochen beschränkt(max.Doppeltief) wenn ich NUR nach dem Chartbild in P5934 gehe.Für langfristige Prognose kann man den MACD im Hinterkopf behalten aber für
Shorteinstiegstiming auf Wochenbasis würde ich eher eine deutliche Erhohlung des RSI und der SP/VIX-Ratio abwarten und dann schauen wo MACD steht und an welcher MA wir abgeprallt sind.mM
Nach dem Lesen fragt man sich unwillkürlich:
Alles Deja Vu, oder was ? Oder doch vielleicht Same old story?
…. A credit crunch happens when financing for real estate transactions disappears or is hard to find. Since financing is a significant component of demand, the price of real estate drops quickly.
A credit crunch happens when commodity financing is withdrawn, so that inventories of, say, nickel, copper, crude oil, or silver can no longer be carried. The inventories have to be rapidly liquidated--sold in the market--with a consequence depression in the price.
A credit crunch happens when the collateral posted in a loan or trade transaction suddenly drops in value, so that more collateral must be posted. When this is not possible, the collateral must be sold at its new low price in order to help repay the loan. Done in sufficient volume, this further depresses the value of the collateral.
……Borrowing in yen at extremely low interest rates was considered a free lunch. Then one day the free lunch disappeared.
Credit crunches used to be banking phenomena almost exclusively. No more. During the 1980s and 1990s formerly illiquid assets became more marketable or tradable. They no longer just sit on the asset side of some bank's balance sheet.
"Securitization" is the process by which a collection of receivables is put together in a package, and then bonds are issued against the package. The package may be a collection (or portfolio) of credit card receivables, or automobile lease payments, or commercial mortgages, or some similar type of asset which provides "backing".
…..In the first half of 1998, more credit was provided in the asset-backed securities market than provided by the entire US banking system.
In traditional central banking theory, the lender of last resort--the Federal Reserve, in this case--is supposed to halt the run out of relatively illiquid financial assets, and real assets (commodities, goods) and into money. How? By making more money available. One deals with the drying up of liquidity by creating more. But how does one do that without exacerbating the current problem, or simply creating future inflation? Who should get money, and why? Doesn't postponing liquidation of assets postpone resolution of the crisis?
Aus “The Credit Crunch” von J.Orlin Grabbe, 1998
http://www.aci.net/kalliste/creditcr.htm
Meine Strategie für die nächsten Tage ist also die Shortdax-Zertifikate laufen zu lassen und ansonsten abwarten. Sollte der Markt nächste Woche unter die Supports fallen gehebelt shorten, ansonsten allmählich ins Bullenlager wechseln. Am Tag der FED-Entscheidung muss man sehen wie sie ausfällt und entsprechend reagieren.
Sehr wahrscheinlich ist, dass Mitte September die große Zeit der Bären abläuft und wir ein Doppeltief sehen, wobei das Tief nach der Zinsrally ein drittes Mal getestet werden könnte weil sicher im Herbst/Winter noch so manche schlechte Nachrichten eintreffen werden. Darauf wetten würde ich aber nicht mehr, denn wenn die FED erst einmal gesenkt hat ist klar, dass Greenspans Geist unter Bernake weiterlebt lebt. Dann wird sie sich nicht scheuen, die Zinsen ein zweites Mal zu senken (siehe 98).
Wie gesagt: Ruft euch mal die Dimension der Krise in Erinnerung: Schwarzmalen ist nicht angebracht: Weltweit (!) gesehen werden wir eine Konjunkturdelle sehen, keine Rezession.
Ich bin auf der Suche nach Shortgelegenheiten immer noch mit Amazon beschäftigt. Auch wenn man mir davon abrät so würde ich doch gerne die Charttechniker bitten hier einen entsprechenden Chart zu Amazon einzustellen:
http://www.ariva.de/...che_Staerke_der_Aktie_t302341?search=permanent
Amazon muß einer der Hauptleittragenden einer US Rezession sein welche vom Konsumenten (bzw. Häusermarkt) ausgelöst ist. Nun sind Einzelhändler schon stark gefallen. Amazon bildet da eine Ausnahme, somit eigentlich der optimale Shortkanidat???
Wünsche ein schönes Wochenende.
Permanent
Sowohl im DAX als auch im DOW gab es einen False-Break. Hier der DAX:
Dies ist keine gutes Zeichen - außer für alle Bären....
Trotzdem ist und bleibt es nur eine Korrektur. Da bin ich mir ziemlich sicher. Die "Globalisierungshausse" wird jetzt noch nicht enden. Und Amerika wird nicht kampflos mit ansehen, wie deren "Vermögenswerte" im Nirwana verschwinden. Nach massiv fallenden Häuserpreisen wird man alles - und damit meine ich auch ALLES - tun, das die Aktien oben bleiben bzw. weiter steigen, damit die Verluste aus dem Häuserdebakel kompensiert werden. Ein deindustrialisiertes Land, welches nur noch HighTech Waffen und Druckerpresse besitzt, wird das eine oder andere schon einsetzen, wenn es ums Überleben geht. Oder beides.
Und was lesen meine müden Augen da, der Iran - also ein absoluter Bösewicht per US Definition - rückt reale Waren ( in dem Falle Öl ) nicht mehr gegen grünes Klopapier raus. Ja gibt`s denn sowas. Dabbelbusch, tun Sie etwas dagegen! Im Falle Russlands - die Ihre realen Werte auch nicht mehr gegen Grünes Klopapier rausrücken - sieht die "Börse" ja ein, das man hier lieber die Füße ruhig hält....aber Iran? Da kann man doch ohne große Gefahr mal wieder richtig drauf hauen. Und da Jedermann weiß, das man dann kaufen soll wenn die Kanonen donnern, sieht man dann auch neue Höchststände ohne selbst am Kaptalmarkt intervenieren zu müssen.
Ja, von den Erleuchteten kann man eine Menge lernen....
Wertzuwachs
Denn letztendlich haben in den vergangenen 10 Jahren die Maßnahmen der Fed, auch in konzertierter Aktion mit dem IWF, ja stets „heilende“ Wirkung gezeigt. Und das bei unterschiedlichen Playern und differenten Markt-Vehikeln.
1987-Währungskrise in Asien. Der IWF stützt hier z.B. den thailändischen Baht mit 20 Milliarden $.
1998-Der Fall von Long Term Capital durch Spekulationen mit extrem gehebeltem Fremdkapital. Die Fed schreitet mit Milliarden-Stützungen ein, um die Märkte vor dem Zusammenbrechen zu bewahren.
2000-Das Platzen der dot.com-Blase. Die Fed senkt die Zinsen in rascher Folge auf 1%, die Märkte stabilisieren sich.
2007-Housing/Kredit-Krise. Die Fed öffnet das Diskont-Fenster, um die Liquidität der Märkte zu sichern. Ein unmittelbares Absenken der Fed-Fund Rate gilt als wahrscheinlich.
Auch diesmal werden wir mit Sicherheit als Folge durch die Hypotheken bzw. Kredit-Krise keinen Crash des Marktes oder den Untergang des Abendlandes erleben.
Wir sehen, simpel gesprochen, einfach nur eine weitere Folge mit dem Titel „Risk, Bailout & Repeat“ aus der bekannten Serie „Reaching for Returns“
Und nach Returns auf unsere Invests suchen wir Alle, Du als auch ich ;-)
geschah vor langer langer Zeit folgendes:
Der Untergang des Römischen Reiches wurde eingeleitet mit einer Konzentration von Kapital und Konsum im Reichskern und progressiver Verlagerung der Produktion in die Provinzen.
Hinzufügen möchte ich noch, das sowohl fehlende Mehrwerterzeugung ( war auch der Hauptgrund für den Zusammenbruch des Ostblocks ) als auch Dekadenz hierbei eine große Rolle spielten....
Aber selbst die Römer waren zumindestens so schlau, Ihre Produktion nur in Gebiete auszulagern, die entweder Ihnen sowieso gehörten oder annektiert waren. Wohingegen die USA nahezu Ihre gesamte Produktion in ein Land ausgelagert hat, welches Morgen oder wann immer es der kommunistischen Führung beliebt, ebendiese Anlagen und Maschinen zum "Wohle des Volkes" enteigenen kann.
Und wie ich die gewitzten Chinesen kenne, wird die Entschädigung - ja, so etwas gibt es auch bei Kommunisten - für die Enteignung dann in Dollar ausgezahlt.............womit dann der Kreislauf wieder geschlossen wäre und AntiLemming sich nicht mehr den Kopf zerbrechen muss, was die Chinesen nur mit den 1,2 Billionen Dollar anfangen werden die man momentan gebunkert hat aber nicht ohne massive Verluste verkaufen kann.....
Wertzuwachs
Von daher sind derlei extreme Langfrist- Betrachtungen m.E. in einem Börsen-Board nicht unbedingt notwändig.
Teile diese Restmülls, der "level 3"-Anteil, sind nur mit mathematischen Methoden ["markt to model"] überhaupt noch zu "bewerten". Der Witz der Woche dabei: Wenn die Broker dieselben Computer-Programme, deren Fehlbewertungen sie einst zum Kauf des Giftmülls veranlassten, nun zur Bewertung dieses Giftmülls heranziehen, stellen sie natürlich fest, dass es gar kein Giftmüll ist. Fatalerweise fließen die Ergebnisse dieser Computer-(Fehl-)Bewertungen dann auch noch in die Quartalszahlen ein. Selbstbetrug vom Feinsten. Zyniker gehen jetzt long US-Broker.
Wall Street's stress test
Broker earnings to give investors early damage report from credit crunch
By Alistair Barr, MarketWatch
Last Update: 7:57 PM ET Sep 7, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Investors are about to get a look at the first major reports on the damage from this summer's credit crunch.
In a little more than a week, Wall Street's biggest firms report quarterly results. These companies are lynchpins of the global financial system, so their performance will be scrutinized for clues on how banks, other companies, capital markets and the broader economy are coping with a crisis that has hit close to home for some top brokers.
"This quarter is the most anticipated earnings event for the brokers for years," said Brad Hintz, an analyst at Bernstein Research and former chief financial officer at Lehman. "There's huge amounts of uncertainty about brokerage firms' results. Questions are swirling."
'Everything was going in their favor, but suddenly all the forward-moving trends have stopped and some have started going in the opposite direction.'
— Dick Bove, Punk Ziegel
Goldman Sachs (GS) , Morgan Stanley (MS) , Lehman Brothers (LEH) and Bear Stearns (BSC), four of the five leading U.S. investment banks, unveil fiscal third-quarter results on Sept. 18, 19 and 20. (Merrill Lynch (MER), the other big broker, reports after the end of September).
More than their peers, Lehman and Bear may be the most exposed to the credit crunch because they rely on fixed-income sales and trading more than rivals such as Morgan Stanley and Merrill, analysts said. Indeed, Lehman gets almost half its 2006 revenue from the business, while Bear got 44% of its revenue from there last year, according to Bernstein estimates.
Among the questions that are foremost on analysts' minds when the big brokers report later this month: Will firms have to cut the value of assets they're holding, resulting in charges that will cut into earnings?
[Probably, yes - A.L.]
How much did the slowdown in fixed-income markets eat into the revenue that investment banks generate from selling and securitizing assets such as mortgage-backed securities?
[deeply, I guess - A.L.]
How deeply has the credit crunch cut the number of M&A deals that investment banks work on, especially those involving private-equity firms?
[completely evaporized, M&A now close to zero - A.L.]
Market turmoil has its upside for investment banks too though. But it's still unclear whether higher trading volumes and surging volatility in equity, commodity and currency markets will make up for a torrent of bad news.
Wall Street's titans dominate trading and sales of securities in equity, bond and other markets, while advising on and helping to finance some of the biggest mergers and acquisitions. They've also been at the center of a surge in financial innovation in recent years that's created a huge credit derivatives market and rampant securitization, in which assets like mortgages and other loans are sliced into asset-backed securities and sold to investors.
But many of these trends, which just a few months ago produced record earnings on Wall Street, have abruptly halted and even gone into reverse as problems in the subprime corner of the U.S. mortgage business spread across most of the credit market.
'Summer from hell'
In what Hintz calls "the summer from hell," bond investors fled to the safest government securities, while spreads widened dramatically on riskier forms of high-yield and other debt and leveraged loans used to finance buyouts. (The spread is the difference between yields on riskier debt and safer debt such as Treasurys). The mortgage-backed securities market, which helped fuel the housing boom, froze up. The values of collateralized debt obligations, a further wrinkle in the recent securitization trend, collapsed. Some parts of the commercial paper market shut down and leveraged loans became difficult to sell.
The turmoil has already claimed many victims. More than 130 subprime mortgage origination companies have shut down or stopped offering loans since late 2006, Bernstein estimates. Several hedge funds have collapsed, notably two run by Bear Stearns. Even Goldman had to pump $2 billion of its own money into one of its big hedge funds after losses in August.
The Amex Securities Broker/Dealer index (XBD), which tracks firms including Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Lehman, Bear and Merrill, has slumped more than 16% during the past two months. In June, the index hit a record.
"Everything was going in their favor, but suddenly all the forward-moving trends have stopped and some have started going in the opposite direction," Dick Bove, an analyst at Punk Ziegel, said.
These investment banks "have been on top of the recent dynamism in capital markets, so they're the best indicator of the health of these new, important areas of finance," he added.
Kicking the tires
Some investors are waiting to see how these firms have faired in their fiscal third quarters before committing more money, Hintz said.
Momentum investors, who buy stocks of companies with rising earnings, have sold their positions in investment banks already, helping to push the shares lower. But value investors, who like undervalued stocks, are now interested because some brokers, such as Bear Stearns, are trading near historically low valuations, Hintz explained.
"Value investors are all waiting for the brokerage earnings," he said. "Will anyone blow up? How will future earnings be impaired by problems in the credit markets. They are doing a lot of research, kicking the tires, right now."
[Der Versuch, die US-Broker jetzt in die "Value"-Ecke zu stellen, dürfte nach hinten los gehen. Was nützen historisch niedrige KGVs, wenn der Nenner in diesem Bruch, die Gewinne, gegen Null konvergiert - nach einer der größten "Kredit-Bonanzas" aller Zeiten? - A.L.]
"Brave value investors will buy just before the earnings come out, but others will wait for a couple of them to report first before buying," he added. "If the investment banks make it through this quarter without announcing big write downs, then these will be very attractive stocks for value investors."
[d. h. "Mutige" Investoren kaufen die Broker vor den Zahlen, intelligente lassen es auch hinterher sein - A.L.]
Valuation concerns
The credit crunch has increased concerns about how well investment banks value some of their assets. The firms hold some complicated securities that don't trade much, making them more difficult to value than things like stocks and government bonds.
"The more important, broader question is whether they can truly value the assets that they hold," Bove said. "And the answer is that they cannot. They've overstated their assets and therefore their book values, so the stocks should go lower."
These assets include so-called residuals, which are often riskier parts of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).
When an investment bank securitizes loans, they chop them up into different "tranches." Some slices are less risky, pay lower interest rates and have higher ratings. But to get AAA ratings on the best bits, investment banks sometimes have to take the riskiest tranches that are exposed to the first losses on the underlying loans, Bove explained. These are residuals.
["Residuals" kann man daher als "wertlosen Restmüll" der müll-lastigen Portfolios betrachten - A.L.]
Bear, Lehman, Goldman, Morgan Stanley and Merrill have between $4 billion and $11 billion of "residual interests" on their balance sheets, according to a report that Michael Hecht, an analyst at Banc of America Securities, issued on Friday. These include MBS, other asset-backed securities, CDOs, muni and corporate bonds, he added.
When investment banks arrange financing for LBOs, they usually provide a bridge loan to help the deal close quickly. They then sell the debt in the market. When LBO financing stalls or fails, these banks are left with so-called hung loans.
Such hung loans on the balance sheets of investment banks may have to be valued lower, cutting into earnings, Hecht and other analysts say.
The combination of lower valuations of residuals and hung loans could take a big chunk out of profit this quarter.
"We also expect a 34 % sequential quarter decline" in third-quarter earnings per share, Jeff Harte, an analyst at Sandler O'Neill, wrote on Friday. He sees "significant asset markdowns, particularly in mortgage related securities and leveraged loan commitments."
Marking to model
Some assets are so esoteric and trade so infrequently that investment banks have to value them based on mathematical models, rather than the market prices of similar or related securities. These are known as Level 3 assets.
This, in theory, gives firms lots of leeway in valuing these assets, which include things like derivatives, private-equity investments, residuals of CDOs and mortgage-servicing rights, Bove said.
[Mit anderen Worten: Die großen Broker könnten durch hedonistische Bewertung ihre exotischen level-3-Restmülls ihren Kopf pro forma aus der Schlinge ziehen - A.L.]
Wall Street firms use mark-to-model techniques to value 9% of the Level 3 trading inventory on their balance sheets, estimates Bernstein's Hintz. Goldman is top at 15%, while Merrill is bottom at 2%. (See table)
Brokerage Percentage of Level 3 trading inventory valued using mark-to-model techniques:
Goldman Sachs 15%
Morgan Stanley 13%
Lehman Brothers 8%
Bear Stearns 7%
Merrill Lynch 2%
Source: Bernstein Research
Level 2 assets are those that may not trade much, but that can be valued by checking market prices of similar securities and making assumptions about variables such as interest rates, Bove explained. These can include MBS, some corporate bonds and CDOs, he added.
The five largest U.S. brokers and the biggest universal banks -- Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America -- have $4.1 trillion of Level 2 assets on their balance sheets, according to Bove, who got the data from the companies' regulatory filings.
That's almost 10 times their shareholder equity, Bove noted.
"A 5% wiggle in that number and you're looking at significant wipe out of shareholder equity," he warned.
'Highly unlikely'
Still, Hintz and other analysts are more sanguine about such valuation issues.
"A major concern is that all of the marks investment banks are using to value holdings are wrong and they will have to take large write downs," Hintz said. "That's a great press story but highly unlikely."
Investment banks track the value of their holdings very carefully, using computers that analyze a huge central "pot" of data. This feeds into other parts of their operations, including accounting, risk management and systems that check on counterparty and credit risks, Hintz explained.
[Das ist ja der Witz der Woche: Wenn die Broker dieselben Computer-Programme, deren Fehlbewertungen sie zum Kauf des Giftmülls veranlassten, nun zur Bewertung dieses Giftmülls heranziehen, stellen sie natürlich - welch Wunder - fest, dass es gar kein Giftmüll ist. Fatalerweise fließen die Ergebnisse dieser Computer-(Fehl-)Bewertungen dann auch noch in die Quartalszahlen ein. Selbstbetrug vom Feinsten. Zyniker gehen jetzt long US-Broker - A.L.]
Then, hundreds of controllers check the valuations of the assets on the balance sheet. When Hintz was CFO at Lehman in the late 1990's, he said, the bank had more than 800 staff in this area.
Such arrangements would make it very difficult for traders at these firms to value positions artificially high, he said. With so many other things relying on such valuations, it's also in investment banks' best interest to get it right and be conservative, he added.
"It is very difficult for inaccurate mark to model valuations to remain a secret," Hintz said. "And if I get my marks wrong, everything else is messed up in the firm. They may want to play games with valuations, but doing so would mean everything else was wrong too."
Fixed-income fallout
The credit crunch has also disrupted several markets in which investment banks have generated lucrative fees recently.
Sales of asset-backed securities are down 28% in the third quarter versus the second quarter and MBS issuance is off 24%, according to Banc of America Securities. Sales of high-yield debt are down almost 32% in the quarter, versus the previous quarter, the bank also estimated.
Weakness in the MBS market will likely hit Lehman and Bear the hardest, analysts said. Bear was the leading underwriter of MBS last year, with an 11% market share, according to Dealogic data complied by Bernstein. Lehman was second with 10%. Bernstein's Hintz expects Bear's third-quarter fixed-income sales and trading revenue to slump by half versus the second quarter. Lehman's may drop 37%, while Goldman and Morgan Stanley could see declines of 28% to 30%, he added.
Credit market problems have already disrupted some large leveraged buyouts. If investment banks continue to struggle to sell leverage loans that help pay for these acquisitions, M&A volumes may continue to drop from what were record levels earlier this year.
The volume of completed M&A deals during the third quarter is down by roughly 25%, Bernstein estimated recently, citing Dealogic data.
[Nur 25 % Minus??? - in den letzten sechs Wochen hab ich kaum noch was von PE-Übernahmen gehört...]
Still, equity trading volumes surged in July and August, while stock, commodity and currency markets became much more volatile. That will likely boost revenue and earnings in the equity and derivatives trading departments of investment banks, analysts said.
Equity trading volumes on the New York Stock Exchange are up 17% this quarter versus the previous three months and up 24% from a year ago, Banc of America Securities' Hecht noted on Friday.
Equity options volume is up 62% from a year earlier, he also noted.
Indeed, Hecht expects third-quarter results from the top investment banks to be a "stabilizing" event and advised clients to invest in the stocks ahead of the reports.
Alistair Barr is a reporter for MarketWatch in San Francisco.
By the way: Schön, dass in Posting 5933 mal der Chart des S&P 500 seit 1955 gezeigt wird. Da sieht die langjährige Entwicklung am US-Aktienmarkt optisch recht "gesund" aus - also: keine Überbewertung ? Deshalb nur Delle ? Man beachte aber bitte, welche durchschnittliche Performance dem seit 52 (!) Jahren zugrundeliegt: 12,6% p.a. .
Wäre dies durch die Gewinnentwicklung der Unternehmen gerechtfertigt, so müsste das durchschnittliche KGV der letzten 52 (!) bei 7,9 liegen. Ich bleibe bei meiner Sichtweise: Big bubble! - Ich traue mich aber noch nicht so weit zu gehen, zu behaupten, dass genau jetzt der Zeitpunkt ist, zu dem ... . Dafür hätte es auch in den letzten Jahrzehnten schon reichlich Gelegenheiten gegeben. Eine der Gelegenheiten wird es dann halt irgendwann mal sein - möglicherweise auch jetzt, oder auch nicht.
While the Fed might decide on a rate reduction as a bit of insurance against having growth weaken too much, there's no sign of serious problems in the economy outside of housing.New information can still influence the meeting's outcome because the impact of the financial market dislocations on the economy remains so uncertain. But right now there's no worry among Fed officials that the economy is about to fall out of bed, or that some major financial institution is going belly up. As Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in his Aug. 31 speech at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank's conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, ``The incoming data indicate that the economy continued to expand at a moderate pace into the summer, despite the sharp correction in the housing sector.''
Bernanke acknowledged that, given the sudden loss of liquidity in financial markets, including the squeeze hurting commercial paper, data for past months or quarters ``may be less useful than usual for our forecasts of economic activity and inflation.'' In this unusual period, Bernanke also said policy makers ``will pay particularly close attention to the timeliest indicators, as well as information gleaned from our business and banking contacts around the country.''
A summary of that gleaning, through Aug. 27, was published on Sept. 5, in the Fed's Beige Book, which is always released two weeks prior to an FOMC meeting.
All 12 of the district Federal Reserve banks, which gather the information, reported that the economy was still expanding, albeit at a slower pace in four of the districts. Consumer spending generally was increasing, while manufacturing production picked up in most areas. In addition, employment was also still rising.
Limited Turmoil
In contrast, housing continued to weaken with lenders tightening standards. Commercial real estate borrowers also were facing somewhat tighter lending standards, while ``credit availability and credit quality remained good for most consumer and business borrowers,'' the summary said.
``Outside of real estate, reports that the turmoil in financial markets had affected economic activity during the survey period were limited,'' it added.
None of that suggests there is any emergency that requires an immediate Fed response.
So what the FOMC does on Sept. 18 probably comes down to a matter of risk management. If the data and the anecdotes continue to depict a pretty healthy economy, the unusual degree of uncertainty about the outlook might lead officials to decide the best decision is a 25 basis point cut just in case the impact of the financial turmoil turns out to be greater than they expect.
Officials haven't dropped all concern about inflation, though at the moment it seems clear that potential economic weakness is the greater risk. The FOMC statement issued on Aug. 17 made that clear.
The good news is that core inflation has receded enough that it gives the committee more freedom to respond to any growth threat than it otherwise would have.
For instance, the core consumer price index, which excludes food and energy items, rose 2.2 percent in the 12 months ended in July. The core personal consumption expenditure price index, the Fed's preferred measure, was up only 1.9 percent over the same period.
The latter was just inside the 1 percent to 2 percent range some Fed officials, including Bernanke, say they would like to keep it within.
So long as core inflation and inflation expectations remain in bounds, officials will respond with more aggressive actions if problems in housing or more broadly in financial markets appear likely to drag down the entire economy. .....
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/...fer=columnist_berry&sid=avsPSp2cXT0U
Der Markt braucht einfach Zeit, um das auszuloten.