As a finance professor, you occasionally get questions like these:
“A friend and I were wondering what your opinion was about the Fed dropping close to 0% interest rates. Additionally, we were wondering on what your opinion was on the markets reaction to everything since.”
My response is below:
Most businesses have a revolving line of credit that they draw down in case of emergencies. Banks need to provide cash when they do this and usually it is an idiosyncratic event. Right now, all businesses are maxing out their credit lines which means banks need a lot of cash. The Fed Funds market is a way to push money out to all banks and then to businesses. The reason this should be different than the Financial Crisis is that the Fed also cut the interest paid on Fed deposits which was why banks did not lend in the aftermath of the last crisis. Now, banks have a greater incentive to lend although they will be looking at risk and still may not lend to risky businesses.
Monetary policy is very useful for managing the banking system. Federal Reserve policy cannot change the consumer’s willingness to spend or ability to spend due to supply chain and distribution disruptions. Additionally, the Fed cannot fix any of the fundamental causes of this crisis. On Friday, the markets were reacting to the president’s announcement on the use of fiscal policy and measures for dealing with COVID-19. Over the weekend, it turned out that many of the president’s statements were not entirely true. The positive market reaction on Friday was reversed today. Until there is some progress on COVID-19 management and a fiscal policy response, markets are expecting a longer and more severe economic reaction.
Stephen Rush 