Bank Deals Blog: Deposits Education and Strategies

Certificates of deposit (CDs)...

There has been a massive amount of media coverage this week of stocks like GameStock that have surged to unbelievable price levels as small traders organized via Reddit attempt to profit from short selling done by hedge funds. Early in the week, it appeared the small traders were winning, but then on Wednesday, brokerage firms like Robinhood restricted access to these stocks. Almost everyone seems to be alleging that these brokerage firms have colluded with the hedge funds so that the hedge funds continue to win at the expense of...

At the completion of its two-day FOMC meeting, the Fed issued a statement very similar to its December statement. The only change was an acknowledgment of the hit the economy has taken in the last two months from the resurgence of the pandemic and acknowledgment that vaccination progress will be an important factor in how the economy progresses. There was no change in the Fed’s forward guidance on rates or asset purchases. The statement language remains the same as December's language which means that it’s very likely that it will...

At the completion of its two-day FOMC meeting, the Fed issued a statement very similar to its November statement. The only change was more details in the forward guidance of asset purchases. The composition of the asset purchases didn’t change. Some economists had expected the Fed to shift its purchases to longer-term maturities.

The Fed also released updates to its Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) which includes federal funds rate forecasts that extend out through 2023. On the plus side, the economic forecasts were upgraded which indicates more optimism for the...

As expected, the Fed didn’t announce any policy changes at the end of its two-day meeting. No changes were made to interest rates or asset purchase plans. All policy sections of today’s FOMC statement were exactly the same as those in the September statement. Only the section that includes an overview of the economy had any changes, and those changes were minimal. Here’s the part of the policy sections describing interest rates:

No one dissented at today’s meeting. One of the dissenters in the September meeting, Minneapolis Fed President, Neel Kashkari,...