http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-30/fed-does-not-taper-keeps-qe-85-billion

Fed Does Not Taper, Keeps QE At $85 Billion

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 14:02 -0400

NASDAQ

Just as everyone expected, the Fed (absent its Press Conference) statement confirms they are data-driven, data is not good 'enough', therefore, no-taper:

*FED SAYS IT WILL AWAIT `MORE EVIDENCE' BEFORE QE TAPER
*FED SAYS ECONOMY `CONTINUED TO EXPAND AT A MODERATE PACE'
*FED SEES IMPROVEMENT IN ECONOMY EVEN WITH `FISCAL RETRENCHMENT

There were no clear comments that markets are growing a little too comfortable with the Fed's free-money. Full Redline below...

Pre-FOMC: S&P Futs 1761, VIX 13.98%, 10Y 2.48%, Gold $1353, USD 79.46

Just before the statement hit, the market broke again! Gold started to rise, USD fell (led by EUR strength), VIX was smashed lower...

*NASDAQ HAS DECLARED SELF HELP AGAINST NASDAQ-BX

By way of interest, in the next 5 days, we will see an overload of Fed Speakers: Tracy, Bullard, Kocherlakota, Lacker, Powell, and Lacker again... It seems they have no need for a press conference.

Full Redline below:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-30/hilsernaths-601-word-summary-took-whopping-7-minutes

Hilsenrath's 601 Word Summary Took A Whopping 7 Minutes

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 14:22 -0400

Bank of New York

Ben Bernanke

Ben Bernanke

Bond

Consumer Confidence

Federal Reserve

Federal Reserve Bank

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Nomination

recovery

William Dudley

inShare

Nobody could ever accuse the WSJ's Jon Hilsenrath of breaching the FOMC embargo, which is why we were delighted to see that he waited a whole 7 minutes before releasing his 601 word summary of what the Fed really said.

Note the timestamp:

The turbo fast written piece, which incidentally says nothing new and once again merely parrots convention wisdom, is below:

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday held steady on its signature $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program and gave few new signals on when officials expect to pull back on the program or how they see the economic outlook changing.

The Fed's policy-making committee showed itself to be effectively in a wait-and-see mode on the bond program, leaving investors in a continued guessing game about the path of a Fed policy that has been an important driver of asset prices and interest rates.

In June, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said he expected the Fed to start pulling back this year, but with only one more Fed policy meeting in December before year-end, that now looks less certain.

"[T]he Committee decided to await more evidence that progress will be sustained before adjusting the pace of its purchases," the Fed said in its statement Wednesday, repeating language it used in September.

The Fed made very few changes to its description of current economic conditions. It said that the economy "continued to expand at a moderate pace," and labor markets "have shown some further improvement." The Fed acknowledged that the "recovery in the housing sector slowed somewhat in recent months," one of the most notables change it made in its statement.

In September, the Fed had said that labor markets had shown "further improvement" and the housing sector was "strengthening."

The Fed also removed references from the September statement to higher mortgage rates and tighter financial conditions.

Fed officials surprised markets at their September meeting when they decided not to cut their bond purchases after months of talk that they could start scaling back by year-end. The program is aimed at pushing down long-term interest rates to spur hiring, investment and spending.

With mortgage rates rising and a potential government shutdown and fight over raising the nation's borrowing limit on the horizon, Fed officials said at the September meeting that they wanted to see more evidence that the economy can sustain its progress before cutting the bond-buying program.

A standoff over the federal budget led to a 16-day government shutdown that ended Oct. 17, injecting new uncertainty into the economy and damaging consumer confidence. The shutdown is expected to muddy some economic data through the end of the year. The Fed says its decisions are "data-dependent," meaning it is basing them on how the economy develops. The most recent jobs report showed disappointing employment growth in September.

Nine out of 10 Fed officials voted to keep the bond-buying program steady on Wednesday. Kansas City Fed President Esther George continued her streak of dissenting by voting against the committee's action because she thought the Fed's easy-money policies could create financial instability and excessive inflation. Ms. George has dissented at all seven policy meetings this year.

The Fed also voted to keep short-term interest rates pinned near zero, where they've been since late 2008. Officials didn't make any changes to so-called forward guidance, which are the statements made about the likely path of interest-rate policy.

All seven Fed governors vote at every policy meeting, as does the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley. Only five Fed governors attended this meeting. Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin is not participating in policy meetings in light of her pending nomination to be the next deputy Treasury secretary. The seat left empty by Elizabeth Duke in August has not been filled.

The presidents of the 11 other regional Fed banks vote on a rotating basis. This year, in addition to Ms. George, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren and Fed President James Bullard can vote.

And because just one super fast summary was not enough, here is another one, 15 minutes later, from the same Fed mouthpiece:

Three Takeaways on the Fed’s Policy Statement

Here are a few key takeaways:

–LITTLE CHANGE IN THE ASSESSMENT OF THE ECONOMY: The housing sector has “slowed somewhat,” the Fed said. That’s a downgrade from September when officials said it had been strengthening. The labor market had shown “some further improvement,” the Fed said, an ever-so-slight downgrade from the “further improvement” the Fed noted in September. On net, very little change in how officials see the economy performing.

–FINANCIAL CONDITIONS IMPROVING: The Fed dropped its reference to financial conditions having tightened in recent months, as it noted in September. That’s a nod of approval to rising stock prices and the recent drop in long-term interest rates. The Fed also removed a reference to its concern about higher mortgage rates, which have dropped since the last meeting.

–STILL AN EYE ON TAPERING: The Fed retained language it used in September which suggested officials had an eye on pulling back from their bond buying program if the economy improved. It noted “underlying strength” in the broader economy and said it chose to “await more evidence” on the economy’s performance before adjusting the bond-buying program.

Taken together, the Fed isn’t taking a December adjustment to the bond-buying program off the table. But that comes with the strong caveat that it depends on whether the economy is living up to its expectations. As part of that assessment, Fed officials will be updating their economic forecasts in December and will need to make a judgment about whether their projection of accelerating economic growth in 2014 is likely to be met.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-30/citi-now-sees-odds-decemberjanuary-taper-announcement-doubling-35-65

Citi Now Sees Odds Of A December/January Taper Announcement Doubling From From 35% to 65%

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 15:53 -0400

Steven Englander

The most succinct post-mortem summary of the FOMC announcement comes from Citi's Stephen Englander. It is as follows:

After reading the Fed statement, CitiFX Head G10 Strategist Steven Englander says that he would put tapering odds at:

20% December

45% January

25% march

10% Beyond March

Before this meeting his estimates would have been:

10% December

25% January

35% March

30% Beyond March

and.....

This happens only if the Fed et all want to have a market crash.....

NOctaper Or Shocktaper: Deutsche Bank's Five Reasons Why The Fed May Stun Everyone Once Again

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 08:02 -0400

Remember when minutes before the September FOMC announcement everyone was absolutely certain the Fed would announce tapering, only to leave a lot of very angry traders fuming? Fast forward one month when everyone is absolutely certain, again, that there is no way the Fed can announce anything even remotely suggesting a taper. One wonders though: since the Fed has by now burned all credibility bridges, and since the capital market bubble is now far greater than it was when both Stein and Bernanke, implicitly, warned about a building asset bubble (a chorus which has now been joined by JPM, Pimco and BlackRock) in early 2013, would today not be the best opportunity for the Fed to once again stun the market with a dramatic policy U-Turn, just to teach those momentum wave-riding vacuum tubes who is in charge? Probably not. However, as Lloyd Christamas noted, there is a chance. Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid explains why.

So will today's FOMC be as surprising to the market as the September meeting? Almost certainly not but you can't completely rule out a small taper for the following reasons: 1) In the September meeting a large majority of FOMC participants expected the taper to start before December; 2) the fiscal situation has been kicked down the road for a while; 3) financial conditions have arguably eased since the last meeting with rates lower and equities higher and 4) many of the members won't be on the committee into next year and may want to make a statement before leaving; and 5) they may feel a little bruised by the market's verbal reaction last time.

Overall we continue to think the Fed are trapped to a large degree by the liquidity they've provided financial markets over recent years which could destabilise assets if they reversed course without a strong economic recovery. Indeed the current data uncertainties is probably the biggest reason for holding fire at the moment, especially so soon after the shutdown. Indeed our view is that the Fed may have to adjust their criteria for tapering if they want to make regular cuts to QE in 2014. We're not sure how employment is going to suddenly pick up at this relatively mature stage of the cycle.

However when all said and done, the Fed do seem to want to taper and although we think they won't until well into next year, we can't help but think that the Fed are currently unpredictable enough at the moment that we need to be vigilant tonight and indeed in December. The story of the next 6 months could be very little tapering but a swing between liquidity complacency and liquidity fear. Maybe we're veering towards the former at the moment. DB’s Peter Hooper expects today’s FOMC to be most likely a “wait and see event” though he sees the case for a taper now is about as strong as it was in September when it was a very close call.

To all of the above we add one more reason: the following headline from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, which hit earlier.

MOFCOM: U.S. POLICY CHANGE MAY CAUSE CAPITAL SWING FOR CHINA.

And so, just like in 2011, China is once again openly complaining about QE (and, tangentially, the inflationary implications it has on the Chinese economy). Recall that it was the soaring Chinese inflation in 2011 that sent gold from roughly where it is now, to all time highs. So if we have a repeat, even as the entire world is now effectively begging Mr. Debtfire to taper, will the BIS' gold selling team headed by Michael Charoze out of Hong Kong be able to contain that one last remnant of the Fed's idiotic monetary policies? Stay tuned.

As for today, our personal hope is no taper now... or ever. After all, the faster the Fed proceeds to monetize everything, and in unlimited amounts, the faster this centrally-planned charade finally ends.

Welcome To The Non-Recovery: ADP Payrolls Miss Big, Plunge To Lowest Since April (With Infographic)

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 08:30

As we mentioned earlier, if there was one thing that would guarantee an 1800 print in the Stalingrad and Propaganda 500 index today, it was a 0 or negative ADP print. Well, it wasn't that bad. But it was close: with a paltry 130K private jobs created in October, this was a monthly plunge in private (i.e. non-government) payrolls, well below expectations, and substantially lower than the September 166K print which also was revised lower to 145K. It was also the 4th consecutive monthly decline starting with a 190K print in June, and it's all downhill from there. Finally, this was the 7th ADP miss in the past 8 months. We can't wait as the spinmasters do all they can to explain how private payrolls were affected by a government shutdown.

CPI Drops, Misses By Most In 14 Months

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 08:43

If there was another reason for the Fed to keep its foot 'through' the floor, it is the fact that despite a record growth in the Fed balance sheet YoY, CPI (ex food and energy) dropped to 1.7% and missed by its biggest margin in 14 months. This is the 2nd lowest print in two-and-a-half years. Perhaps most dismally, real hourly wages rose at only 0.9% year-over-year - around half the rate of inflation. Overall, energy costs rose the most MoM (+0.8%) while Apparel fell 0.5% MoM (its biggest drop in 6 months as we suspect the JCP-driven sales deflation has begun already); and given Sebelius' testimony today we note that healthcare costs are up 2.4% YoY (almost triple the rate of wage increase).

Despite (Or Thanks To) More Macro Bad News, Overnight Futures Levitate To New All Time Highs

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 07:15

The overnight fireworks out of China's interbank market, which saw a surge in repo and Shibor rates (O/N +78 to 5.23%, 1 Week +64.6 to 5.59%) once more following the lack of a follow through reverse repo as described previously, and once again exposed the rogue gallery of sellside "analysts" as clueless penguins all of whom predicted a quick resumption of Chinese interbank normalcy, did absolutely nothing to make the San Diego's weatherman's forecast of the overnight Fed-driven futures any more difficult: "stocks will be... up. back to you." And so they were, despite as DB puts it, "yesterday saw another round of slightly softer US data that helped drive the S&P 500 and Dow Jones to fresh highs" and "the release of weaker than expected Japanese IP numbers hasn’t dampened sentiment in Japanese equities" or for that matter megacorp Japan Tobacco firing 20% of its workforce - thanks Abenomics. Ah, remember when data mattered? Nevermind - long live and prosper in the New Normal. Heading into US trading, today the markets will be transfixed by the FOMC announcement at 2 pm, which will likely say nothing at all (although there is a chance for a surprise - more shortly), and to a lesser extent the ADP Private Payrolls number, which as many have suggested, that if it prints at 0 or goes negative, 1800 on the S&P is assured as early as today.

Despite PBOC Liquidity, Chinese Repo Rates Blow-Out To 4-Month Wides

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/29/2013 - 22:50

The last two weeks have seen US equity markets on a one-way path to the moon, breaking multi-year records in terms of rate of change and soaring to new all-time highs. However, away from the mainstream media's glare, another 'market' has been soaring - but this time it is not good news. Chinese overnight repo rates - the harbinger of ultimate liquidity crisis - have exploded from 6-month lows (at 2.5%) to 4-month highs (6.7% today). The PBOC even added liquidity for the first time in months yesterday (via Reverse Repo - at much higher than normal rates) but clearly, that was not enough and the banks are running scared once again that the re-ignition of the housing bubble in China will mean more than 'selective' liquidity restrictions.

Catharsis Ours

Wednesday, October 30, 2013