|
Current
Events in the
Economy and Financial Markets
Sandra
Pianalto
President
and CEO
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
R.I.S.E.
Global Student Investment Forum
University of Dayton
Dayton, Ohio
March
27, 2008
Introduction
As you all know, financial markets have
been undergoing a great deal of stress these past several months. It has
indeed been a challenging and interesting time to be a policymaker, and
I welcome this opportunity to share my perspectives on what has been happening
in financial markets.
The Federal Reserve
System was created in 1913, not long after a severe banking crisis, to
address our country’s need for financial stability. The Federal
Reserve has the authority — and I might add — the responsibility
— to provide the banking system with a ready source of funds in
times of market stress.
Today, I will provide
some context for the current financial market turmoil, describe its progression,
and then explain why and how the Federal Reserve has been responding to
the situation.
The views I express
today are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my colleagues
in the Federal Reserve System.
I. A Context for the Current Financial Turmoil
To appreciate the unique nature of the current
financial market turmoil and policy responses, I would like to begin by
setting the context behind it. I will describe three key contributing
elements — the housing boom and bust, changes in the structure of
mortgage markets, and the role of highly leveraged financial institutions.
The first element, of course, is the unwinding of the recent housing boom.
Housing booms and busts are not all that unusual at a local or even regional
level. For example, we saw these boom-bust patterns in Texas in the mid-1980s
and in Massachusetts and California in the early 1990s. Foreclosure rates
in those regions rose and remained high for years as housing prices fell.
What is unusual about the current situation is how broad-based and persistent
housing price declines have been. Only a few regions of the country have
been spared, and unfortunately, Ohio is not one of them.
A second key element relates to changes in the structure of mortgage markets.
Years ago, people purchased homes by borrowing from local banks and thrift
institutions, which kept the loans on their books. Banks and thrifts bore
the risk of loss if a loan went bad, so they had a clear incentive to
apply high standards for approving mortgage loans.
But mortgage lending has changed dramatically over the past decade or
so with the increasing move to an “originate to distribute”
model of lending. In this model, mortgage brokers originate the loans,
but do not own them. Other financial companies, such as investment banks,
buy these loans, pool them, and repackage them for sale as mortgage-backed
securities. These securities are sold to investors around the world.
Mortgage brokers and investment bankers earn fees for their roles, and
they have strong incentives to generate large volumes of business. Indeed,
huge sums of money have flowed into the U.S. housing market. At the end
of 1995, investors owned $194 billion worth of home mortgages packaged
as mortgage-backed securities. Ten years later, that number had skyrocketed
by about tenfold, to $1.6 trillion.
To satisfy investors’ appetite for ever-higher yields, investment
banks offered their customers pools that contained mortgage-backed securities
along with securities backed by other kinds of loans, such as student,
auto, and commercial real estate loans. Many of these new financial instruments
were complex blends of securities, each with varying degrees of risk.
Often, there was a lack of transparency about exactly what assets were
in the pools.
The third key element to the story involves the growing role of highly
leveraged financial institutions, such as hedge funds and investment banks.
Take hedge funds, for instance. Hedge funds pool large sums of money from
very wealthy individual and institutional investors, such as pension funds,
and use the money to buy a variety of assets, including complex asset-backed
securities. Because they are not legally required to hold any cushion
against losses in their portfolios, hedge funds can earn more for their
investors by taking on additional risk. One way they do this is to rely
heavily on borrowed funds.
The basic strategy is to borrow for the short term at a relatively low,
fixed rate of interest and use the funds to purchase relatively longer-term
and high-yielding assets. This strategy enables the hedge fund to boost
the rate of return for its investors. The use of borrowed money in this
way is called leverage. Although highly leveraged investments can increase
the investors’ returns, they also increase their risk. The risk
is that they will not be able to continue to attract lenders and will
have to sell off their assets to pay back the loans. Hedge fund investors
and their lenders can lose confidence in periods of financial stress —
behaving much like depositors did at banks before the advent of deposit
insurance. In the terminology of the new financial environment, we call
this bank-run-like behavior a “liquidity squeeze.”
These three elements — the housing market correction, changes in
the structure of mortgage markets, and the role of highly leveraged financial
institutions — all set the stage for the financial turmoil we have
seen over the past few months.
II.
The Turmoil Unfolds
With
that background in mind, let me describe the progression of the financial
turmoil. Rising interest rates had been driving up monthly mortgage payments
for some borrowers. Home prices had begun to weaken, and an increasing
number of homeowners found they had negative equity — that is, their
outstanding mortgages exceeded the value of their homes. These and other
circumstances led many homeowners to default on their mortgage loans and
caused many properties to go into foreclosure. Higher mortgage default
rates and foreclosures translated into lower returns on mortgage-backed
assets and the portfolios holding them.
The first signs of a liquidity squeeze emerged last August, when lenders
to highly leveraged financial institutions became fearful of the potential
losses. To satisfy their lenders, these highly leveraged institutions
were forced to sell some of their assets. When a large number of assets
came on the market for sale, there were few buyers. Prices for these risky
assets fell further, and lenders became reluctant to finance their traditional
customers. The financial system that had worked so well when asset values
were appreciating was now struggling. People who had been willing to hold
complex financial assets now wanted safe U.S. Treasury securities or cash.
As the nation’s central bank, the Federal Reserve has the ability
to create an asset that every other participant in the financial system
always accepts at face value. We provide cash to the banking system electronically,
in one of two basic ways. Banks can borrow short-term funds directly from
Reserve Banks at the discount window, and we require them to post collateral
for the term of the loan. We lend at a rate called the discount rate on
primary credit. We also provide cash to the banking system by buying U.S.
Treasury securities on the open market and paying for them by crediting
the bank account of the primary securities dealer who sells them to us.
We call these transactions open market operations.
In normal times, the Federal Reserve relies overwhelmingly on open market
operations to supply money to the financial system. Lending at the discount
window comes into play occasionally to help individual banks with very
short-term liquidity needs.
Between August and November, we used the traditional tools of monetary
policy and discount window lending, and they appeared to be working. Indicators
of risk seemed to stabilize. But markets remained fragile, and they reacted
strongly to news about the health of various financial companies. By mid-December,
the situation entered a new, more disconcerting phase. The housing downturn
appeared to be spilling over into other sectors of the economy, as consumer
spending and business investment slowed. Some of the large companies that
stood at the crossroads of the financial markets were still having liquidity
problems. And, perhaps more important, many creditworthy borrowers who
were far removed from the mortgage markets could not find credit.
III.
Unusual Circumstances Call for Creative Policy Responses
Let
me describe how the Federal Reserve has responded to these unusual circumstances.
As liquidity pressures intensified in December, it became clear that the
Federal Reserve would need to take additional steps to address these problems.
One shortcoming of using discount window lending, especially in periods
when markets are strained, is that many financial institutions and market
participants infer that a bank that borrows from the discount window may
be in trouble. This stigma, which exists regardless of the actual reasons
for borrowing or the soundness of the borrower, often makes banks reluctant
to take a discount window loan, especially in times of market stress.
Thus, even though the Federal Reserve announced its willingness to lend
at the discount window, creditworthy banks were reluctant to take up the
offer.
To address the stigma problem, in December the Federal Reserve created
the Term Auction Facility, or TAF, as it is called. This new supplementary
tool addresses liquidity demands by providing an opportunity for healthy
banks to bid in an auction for discount window loans with a 28-day maturity
and to use a broad array of instruments for collateral.
Despite the success of the TAF, financial conditions worsened in early
2008. Liquidity became scarce again when a highly leveraged hedge fund
defaulted on a loan, making creditors even more cautious. Another problem
emerged, as a shortage of Treasury securities in the marketplace threatened
to interfere with the process of reducing leverage. In more tranquil times,
both U.S. Treasury securities and triple-A rated private mortgage-backed
securities serve as collateral in private borrowing arrangements. Not
so in today’s environment. Many lenders will now accept only Treasury
securities as collateral, and shun the triple-A rated mortgage-backed
securities. Some creditworthy borrowers are shut off because they do not
have Treasury securities.
On March 11, the Federal Reserve created a new tool to address this problem.
Specifically, to
alleviate the Treasury securities shortage, the Federal Reserve introduced
the Term Securities Lending Facility, or TSLF. This facility allows primary
securities dealers to use highly rated private securities as collateral
for the Treasuries they borrow from us.
On March 16, the Federal Reserve announced another facility. In perhaps
its most aggressive action, the Board of Governors authorized the Primary
Dealer Credit Facility, or PDCF. This innovation gives the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York authority to lend directly to primary dealers to provide
financing to participants in securitization markets.
Collectively, these
innovations provide for much longer terms of lending, broader types of
collateral, a wider class of counterparties, and a tighter spread between
the primary credit rate and the target federal funds rate. All of these
innovations are designed to bolster market liquidity and promote orderly
market functioning. Liquid, well-functioning markets are essential for
promoting financial stability and economic growth.
Conclusion
These are challenging times for our economy
and financial markets. We know from studying economic history that booms
are often followed by busts, and this pattern has repeated itself in our
housing markets lately. However, we also know that these stressful periods
will abate and that our economy will improve over time.
The Federal Reserve was created to support long-term economic growth by
promoting low and stable inflation and by providing financial stability.
I hope that my remarks today help you better understand the forces that
have shaped our current financial situation and how the Federal Reserve
has been responding with timely actions.
Printer friendly version
|
