Chris Conkey: "The central bank's credibility is very high right now" (2000)

The central bank's credibility is very high right now.  There's a strong sense the Fed is on top of things.

~ Chris Conkey, Evergreen Investment Management, "Greenspan's Dilemma: The more confident investors are in him, the harder his job becomes," Business Week, April 3, 2000

Rick Rieder on Fed credibility in fighting inflation

I think the Fed deserves an awful lot of credit.  Listen, there was enough criticism to go around, myself included, that last year they waited on QE.  I think that's been well chronicled.  This year, they cannot be any more clear.  They cannot be more strident in inflation is what they're doing and they're not going to back off that.  I think they're going to get the funds rate to 3 3/4, 4% and then I think they're going to let long and variable lags in monetary policy do their thing, so they're pretty clear.  So I think there's a credibility from the Fed that you've got to applaud.

~ Rick Rieder, Head of Global Allocation Investment Team at BlackRock, Bloomberg TV, September 9, 2022

Buffett calls Federal Reserve the greatest hedge fund ever

The Fed is the greatest hedge fund in history. It’s generating $80 billion or $90 billion a year probably in revenue for the U.S. government. And that wasn’t the case a few years back. The Fed is under no pressure, none whatsoever to have to deleverage. So it can pick its time, and if you have somebody wise there -- and I think Bernanke is wise, and I certainly expect his successor to be -- it can be handled. But it is something that’s never quite been done on this scale. It will be interesting to watch.

~ Warren Buffett, Bloomberg, September 20, 2013

Jim Paulsen on the BOJ, ECB, and Fed monetary experiments

I think Abenomics is working.  And I think thank that both Europe - Draghinomics - and Japan - Abenomics - is adopting the Ben [Bernanke] model of stimulate now and ask questions later, and I think the developed world's on the right track.

~ Jim Paulsen, Wells Capital Management, as appeared on CNBC (quote starts at 3:46 on video), June 13, 2013

Alan Greenspan on how he used 'Fedspeak' in Congressional hearings

I would engage in some form of "syntax destruction", which sounded as though I were answering the question but in fact, had not.

~Alan Greenspan, former chairman, Federal Reserve, CBS "60 Minutes" interview, September 16, 2007

JPMorgan economist says Fed can boost confidence, not the economy

Those steps are all about bolstering confidence. It wouldn’t do tons to alter economic and financial conditions, but the perception that the Fed will act and do something is reassuring.

~ Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist and former Fed economist, JPMorgan Chase in New York, Bloomberg.com, August 8, 2011

Ben Stein says monetary stimulus is generating a recovery, housing is next

I wouldn't say [the recovery] has come from federal stimulus, I would say it's come from incredibly accomodative monetary policy. The next natural driver will be the consumer recovering and the consumer feeling more confident, it's already happening in autos. If someone had predicted, a year and a half ago, that the auto-business would be whirring, no one would've believed him. But, because of very accomodative credit terms at the car dealerships, the car dealership business, the car selling and making business, is booming!

I think the next stage is, if somehow the Federal Reserve can convince the banks to be accomodative about lending for housing, housing will recover. I mean, there's no reason that the banks can not get back into housing. They don't have to be as wild and crazy as they were in the late '90s and early 2000s, but they should get back into lending. And when they do, then that will recover, too, and that will be another leg of the recovery.

~Ben Stein, actor, author and economist, WSJ's Markets Hub, April 19, 2011

Bill Miller on how he's adapted his management style to the existence of black swans

We've always had a very robust set of strategies for dealing with all kinds of different kinds of markets, but I think the big mistake that we made, or that I made, was effectively to say, "We need a strategy to deal with anything that's happened in the post-war period." So, inverted yield curves, inflation, a crash like in '87, all different kinds of panics.

But I explicitly ruled out a return, in essence, to depressionary conditons, just like I ruled out a new Civil War, for example. Well, the answer, I think, is you can't rule out anything. Anything. I think you have to look at anything that can hit aggregate demand or aggregate supply. And that's the thing I think we're well prepared for now.

And also, understanding that there are two types of financial crises: one of them, which we've navigated in very well, like the crash of '87, which are liquidity-driven crises. The strategy in a liquidity-driven crisis is pretty simple, which is, when massive liquidity is injected, you buy what the center of the crisis is; in an asset-based crisis, like we had in 2008, that strategy is very bad, as we found out to our chagrin. The proper strategy there, in an asset-based crisis is, you don't do anything until the authorities move to stabilize asset values and preserve them. That was TARP. Everything the Fed had done or the government had done, the Treasury had done up until TARP destroyed equity value. So, wipe equity holders out at Bear Stearns and wiped them out, and even creditors, at Lehman Brothers.

Once they decided to preserve equity values with TARP, that was the beginning of the end of the crisis. That was the time you go in and buy. So, I think we're covered on both kinds of crisis in the future.

~Bill Miller, chairman and CIO, Legg Mason Capital Management, CNBC's Squawk Box, April 6, 2011

Bill Miller on the Fed's ability to avoid hyperinflation

[The Fed has] already monetized a huge amount of this, they've provided an enormous amount of liquidity, there's a trillion dollars of excess reserves sitting on the Fed balance sheet. The issue is, how do you move away from that? I personally wouldn't go so far as Chairman Bernanke that he's a hundred percent certain that they can do it, but, you know, call it eighty-five to ninety percent, because the Fed's balance sheet will normalize on its own. If they don't do anything, all of those mortgage-backed securities will mature and they'll just drift away over the next 7-10 years.

~Bill Miller, chairman and CIO, Legg Mason Capital Management, CNBC's Squawk Box, April 6, 2011

Jeremy Siegel on the potential for Fed tightening

There's so many steps to go before we hit [a point where the Fed feels compelled to tighten] and Bernanke is going to give a speech that is going to say, you know, 'Our strength is now showing, we're going to remove some of the accomodation'. It'll first come probably with moving just the discount rate and then finally some moves on the Federal Funds, it's not going to come all of a sudden. 'Cause, despite how bad the inflation numbers were on the PPI and the CPI this week, the Core were almost exactly on target. That is what the Fed is looking at so there is no reason for a precipitous move right now. They just have to keep their eyes open for problems.

~Jeremy Siegel, professor of finance, Wharton School of Business, Bloomberg News interview, March 24, 2011

Marvin Goodfriend says markets undeservedly overconfident in Fed in 2005

It was a major mistake of the Fed. It gave markets a sense that the Fed was on top of everything to a degree that wasn’t the case. It gave the impression that this was a mechanical adjustment to normality. The market was overconfident.

~Marvin Goodfriend, professor, Carnegie Mellon University, on attending Richmond Fed meetings in 2005, "Fed Officials Saw Housing Bubble in 2005, Didn't Alter Policy" Bloomberg.com, January 14, 2011

Rick Santelli on the noble purpose of the Fed

I'm not going to stand here and tell you I think the Fed ought to be disbanded but I certainly think there's some middle ground between how far they've extended into the gray versus disbanding them. There's got to be something in the middle that makes more sense. I personally think this Fed's heart is in the right place but they're out of control in terms of trying to accomplish what their noble purpose is.

~Rick Santelli, CNBC's Squawk Box, October 28th, 2010

Bill Laggner on cheap and ample credit

Today the faith is clearly in central bankers, that they’ve got things totally under control and have engineered a synchronized global boom. If you’re not participating in this global boom you just don’t get it. It’s not just faith in the Fed but in all the central banks. A good example of this thinking is BusinessWeek’s recent cover story ‘It’s a Low, Low, Low Rate World.’ The idea is that foreign central banks will continue to finance our excesses, they always have and always will, and as a result interest rates will remain low.

~ "Value Traps Revisited," Dollarcollapse.com, December 21, 2007

Robert Olstein: "The bears are in for a good butt kicking"

Don't bet against the Fed. The worst is over, and the market is looking to turn; and when it takes off, the bears are going to be in for a good butt kicking.

~ Robert Olstein, 66, "Tice Proves Every Bear Has Its Day, Invokes `D' Word," Bloomberg.com, May 21, 2008

(Olstein, 66, runs the $1.2 billion Olstein All Cap Value Fund, down 6% year-to-date.)

John Coffee on the credit crunch

I think we're looking at a market that looks a lot healthier than it did two weeks ago.

~ John Coffee, Columbia Law School Professor, as appeared on CNBC, April 2, 2008

Carl Weinberg on monetary stimulus: "Give the Fed an A for effort"

You have to look at of the impact on the financial markets and then on the economy. This crisis is something we've never seen before. What the Fed is doing is a good idea; it's a good try. It aims to affect the part of the economy that is hurting the most, namely asset-backed securities. So I give the Fed an A for effort. The big negative is that it transfers the credit risk of these securities from the private sector to the Fed's balance sheet, and some people believe that is a bad thing. My own view is that the Federal Reserve is doing its job as the lender of last resort in the financial system, which is stuck and can't lend to itself.

~ Carl Weinberg, chief economist, High Frequency Economics, "Coming: Cheaper Oil and a Stronger Buck: Interview with Carl Weinberg," Barron's, March 24, 2008

Jeremy Siegel gives Bernanke's policy the "thumbs up"

Is [Ben] Bernanke right in moving so precipitously? Or is he caving into to political pressures to stimulate the economy in an election year and to popular desire to keep stocks out of a bear market?

At this point I'm going to give Bernanke's policy the "thumbs up." But I have my eyes on the foreign exchange and commodity markets. If the dollar tanks or commodity prices surge, then all bets are off, and Bernanke will have to put an end to these cuts and may have to actually increase rates. But if commodity prices don't rise and a recession is avoided, this new aggressive policy may well change the way central banks steer the economy.

~ Jeremy Siegel, "Bernanke's Fed," Yahoo! Finance, February 1, 2008

Jim Cramer: The bears "just got it wrong" (2007)

Now the bears are going to come on TV. They're going to say the [rate] cut's terrible for inflation. It's going to cause the dollar to come down. It's going to cause oil to spike. That the Fed doesn't know what it's doing. I need you to know that these are people who just got it wrong. They got it really, really wrong. They didn't think the Fed could change on a dime, they didn't think that there could be rate cuts. They just got it wrong. We are not done going higher.

If you remember at the beginning of the year, I predicted to you that the Dow would go to 14,500 by year-end because we would have two rate cuts. Now a 50 basis point cut should count as two cuts. This takes us off the detour and puts us back on the road to 14,500.

Now the Fed is on the team. They're with the good guys.

The bottom line: As of today, the whole face of the market has changed with these cuts. The time to be worried has come and gone. Because finally the Fed is facing the right direction and making the right moves. Ladies and gentlemen, the bull is back.

~ Jim Cramer, CNBC's "Mad Money," September 19, 2007

(The DJIA closed at 13,816 +76.)

Jim Cramer on the Fed's 3/4% rate cut

Today was the day the Federal Reserve finally blinked and woke up from its reckless stupor... Today may be the beginning of the end of this nightmarish market.

~ Jim Cramer, CNBC's Mad Money, January 22, 2008

(Without Tuesday's emergency move, Cramer said the market could have dropped 1,000 points or even 1,500 points. He said more cuts are needed to turn around the markets.)

Alan Skrainka on latest Fed plan to add liquidity

This is a very bullish development for the markets. The main problem in credit markets has not been that rates are too high, but that financial institutions have been unwilling to lend. This added liquidity should relieve some of that pressure.

~ Alan Skrainka, chief market strategist, Edward Jones, "U.S. stocks recover gains after late-session slide; Coordinated actions by central banks designed to add $40 billion in liquidity," MarketWatch, December 12, 2007

(The Fed unveiled a plan Wednesday to add $40 billion in liquidity to the markets, with help from the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada and the Swiss National Bank. See full story.)