The Latest Breaking News from Fed Funds Rate

The long-term trend in U.S. 30-year government Treasury Bond futures has been sideways since the low in October 2023. After over two years of trading in a narrow range, bonds and interest rates could break out of the current trend, with serious consequences for the economy.

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s main monetary policy tool is the control of short-term interest rates through the Fed Funds Rate. The market expects the Fed to reduce rates at the September FOMC meeting, but lowering short-term rates does not guarantee that longer-term interest rates will decline.

The U.S. Federal Reserve conducts monetary policy using the short-term Fed Funds Rate as its most effective tool. Meanwhile, longer-term interest rates are a function of supply and demand and market sentiment.

Energy prices (sans natural gas) fell, while most other commodity prices rose in September as interest rates and the U.S. dollar declined.

The United States is the world’s wealthiest country, and the U.S. dollar has been the reserve currency or foreign exchange instrument of choice for over a century. Countries and investors worldwide have held U.S. sovereign debt because of the full faith and credit of the U.S. government’s economic and political…

Physical lumber prices have recovered after a significant Q2 decline as the market expects lower inflation to lead to falling short-term interest rates. However, the peak construction season will be in the rearview mirror in the coming months, so the wood futures market may have to wait until spring 2025…

Quantitative tightening is the Fed’s process of reducing its balance sheet. After purchasing debt securities during and after the 2020 global pandemic, the U.S. central bank has allowed those purchases to roll off its balance sheet since March 2022. At the early May FOMC meeting, the Fed told markets it…

In 2023, the long bond futures fell to their lowest level since 2007 as the Fed fought inflation with a hawkish monetary policy path. The long bond futures recovered after reaching a low in October but have not broken out of the bearish trend intact since the 2020 high.

The long bond futures reached a sixteen-year low in October 2023. Rising short-term Fed Funds rates and quantitative tightening caused bonds to fall and rates to rise, choking economic growth. Higher rates weighed on the stock market and other asset classes over the past months. However, bonds have recovered since…