A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank.
Interest rates are to asset prices what gravity is to the apple. When there are low interest rates, there is a very low gravitational pull on asset prices.
You know what higher interest rates mean. To you it means a higher mortgage payment, a higher car payment, a higher credit card payment. To our economy, it means business people will not borrow as much money, invest as much money, create as many new jobs, create as much wealth, raise as many raises.
A lower interest rate doesn't make a debt go away.
Nobody can predict interest rates, the future direction of the economy or the stock market. Dismiss all such forecasts and concentrate on what's actually happening to the companies in which you've invested
Public opinion always wants easy money, that is, low interest rates.
I do not like debt and do not like to invest in companies that have too much debt, particularly long-term debt. With long-term debt, increases in interest rates can drastically affect company profits and make future cash flows less predictable.
It all comes down to interest rates. As an investor, all you're doing is putting up a lump-sump payment for a future cash flow.
The art of banking is always to balance the risk of a run with the reward of a profit. The tantalizing factor in the equation is that riskier borrowers pay higher interest rates. Ultimate safety - a strongbox full of currency - would avail the banker nothing. Maximum risk - a portfolio of loans to prospective bankrupts at usurious interest rates - would invite disaster. A good banker safely and profitably treads the middle ground.
If inflation-adjusted interest rates decline in a given country, its currency is likely to decline.
The one instrument that has relative political autonomy is monetary policy. Central banks do not need to go to Congress to get approval for an interest rate hike.
Mr. Greenspan did a very good job in the early 1990's. But recently he's fallen prey to this crazy theory that prosperity causes inflation. So they're trying to slow the economy down by raising interest rates. It's like a doctor saying you're in great health, so we have to make you sick a little bit. It's a bizarre theory. It's going to hurt our economy.
Never try to time the bond market. Anyone who claims to know the future of interest rates is certifiable.
The single biggest issue that I'm very sensitive to is inflation. I'm very concerned that this extended period where the interest rates were quite low and stimulated a lot of activity could breed inflation and create a problem for us.
Near the top of the market, investors are extraordinarily optimistic because they've seen mostly higher prices for a year or two. The sell-offs witnessed during that span were usually brief. Even when they were severe, the market bounced back quickly and always rose to loftier levels. At the top, optimism is king, speculation is running wild, stocks carry high price/earnings ratios, and liquidity has evaporated. A small rise in interest rates can easily be the catalyst for triggering a bear market at that point.
Imagine you owe on five credit cards, you owe five debts. So which debt should you pay first? And the answer is very simple: You should pay the one with the highest interest rate first. But that's not what people do.
We create these boom-bust cycles by manipulating the money supply and the interest rates and directing it where it went in. And that is what happened with housing: pushed into housing combination of easy money plus all the regulations, and we created this boom-bust cycle, and corruption, because corruption goes with it, because you don't have the same discipline. So we've got to stop all that.
If you happen to be the only one with negative interest rates, you also weaken your currency, which means you make your exports more competitive.
The reality is that business and investment spending are the true leading indicators of the economy and the stock market. If you want to know where the stock market is headed, forget about consumer spending and retail sales figures. Look to business spending, price inflation, interest rates, and productivity gains.
An overheating economy, characterized by accelerating inflation and rising interest rates, is another precondition for recession. This doesn't describe today's economy.
How long can interest rates stay negative? Think about this. Not only are you lending your money to governments, but you're paying them interest for the privilege of doing so.
Think today's interest rates are high? The Pilgrims borrowed $7000 from a London company of 70 investors in 1620, and devoted the next 23 years to repaying it at 43 percent.
Today the strategies of many companies in the real estate industry are premised on low interest rates, an assumption that has resulted in the rapid expansion of the real estate securitization business. This trend could be regarded as a risk factor, as it exposes the real estate sector to at least three potential problems: first, interest rate hikes; second, revisions to securitization business accounting standards; and third, overheating in the real estate market.
Interest rate cuts have an effect in stimulating an economy by directly or indirectly making someone, somewhere, spend more than they otherwise would. That extra spending increases demand and ensures that we all carry on with work to do, without us having to slash our prices or our wrists.
Once the dollar begins to collapse beneath the weight of all this new deficit spending, accumulation of contingency liabilities and the socialization of our economy, commodity prices and interest rates will head skyward.
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