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Saying “aggressive action” was needed to soften the blow to the economy from the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Reserve on Monday announced it would purchase an unlimited amount of Treasurys and securities tied to residential and commercial real estate to ward off a credit crunch.
The Fed said it would buy assets “in the amounts needed” to support smooth market functioning and effective transmission of monetary policy. The Fed had previous set a $700 billion limit for asset purchases.
In addition, the Fed announced several new lending programs worth $300 billion to support all corners of the financial markets.
Economists said the Fed action was big.
“The only parallel that comes to mind is with [former ECB chief Mario] Draghi’s ‘whatever it takes’ moment, except that these are not just words,” said Robert Perli, a former Fed staffer and now an analyst with Cornerstone Macro.
The $300 billion size will get bigger once Congress approves the stimulus package under negotiations, he added.
Jeffrey Bergstrand, professor of finance at the University of Notre Dame, Mendoza College of Business, said there are two notable differences with the Fed’s response to the financial crisis of 2008-2009.
The Fed is acting more quickly to try to “ward off” layoffs and is using all available channels to generate liquidity — Treasury, commercial paper, corporate bond, municipal bond markets — by buying assets across the board.
“It is the speed of the expansion across a broad array of assets that is unprecedented,” he added.
Former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. head Sheila Bair, a critic of some of the Fed’s rescue efforts during the financial crisis, welcomed the new borrowing initiatives.
The Fed said it had to act because it was clear the U.S. economy will face severe disruptions.
“Aggressive effort must be taken across the public and private sectors to limit the losses to jobs and income and to promote a swift recovery once the disruptions abate,” the central bank said in a statement.
In a separate announcement, the New York Fed said it would buy $75 billion of Treasury securities and approximately $50 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities each business day this week “subject to reasonable prices.” The New York Fed also said it would start purchasing agency commercial mortgage-backed securities this week.
In addition to QE, the Fed set up three new emergency lending programs. It set up facilities to buy corporate bonds in the primary and secondary market and gave additional support for muni lenders.
These sectors have been frozen as investors demand cash for their holdings.
“The Fed is wasting no time…to ensure that the current liquidity crisis does not morph into something more deleterious like a credit crisis,” said Ian Pollick, an analyst with CIBC.
The Fed also set out a new program to support many types of small business and consumer loans.
The Fed also promised to set up “Main Street Business Lending Program” soon.
The Fed said it would provide bridge financing of four years to investment-grade companies.
Lawmakers are working on a stimulus package that includes using the Fed to get lending out to firms hurt by the shutdown of the U.S. economy. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said this program could result in $4 trillion of liquidity.
Stocks moved sharply lower on Monday despite the Fed announcement. The Dow Jones Industrial DJIA, -3.04% closed down almost 600 points, up from earlier lows of around 900 points.
