CIO Vantage Point

The Fed announced another round of "quantitative easing" in the form of $40 billion of mortgage purchases per month until the labor market "improves substantially."  The stated goal is to "increase policy accommodation" by driving down the cost of borrowing not only in the mortgage sector, but in other areas as relative valuations adjust.

A conveniently leaked statement from the ECB yesterday purports they will begin an "unlimited, sterilized" buying program for eurozone debt with maturities up to three years.  The markets cheered as they have every "kick-the-can" announcement thus far, but there's more to the story.

Jackson Hole, housing, consumer debt, Draghi and a European recovery?...well, probably not!

Many of the bureaucrats in Europe believe in a single mantra for keeping the euro:“It would be too expensive to let it go!”
Well, that may be, but before jumping to that conclusion let’s look at the facts.