by Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade
Apparently, the mega banks on Wall Street thought that the Fed was never going to take away the punch bowl. And now the Fed has indicated that it’s thinking about thinking about doing just that.
By taking away the punch bowl we mean trimming back its $80 billion in monthly purchases of Treasury securities and $40 billion in agency Mortgage-Backed Securities. And, at some point, actually starting to hike interest rates again.
Fed Chair Jerome Powel made clear during his press conference on Wednesday that trimming the $120 billion in bond purchases monthly is now very much part of the FOMC discussions. Powell said this in answer to a question about when that trimming might start: