The Fed to implement “Operation Twist”

The Federal Open Market Committee concluded its meeting Wednesday, September 21, 2011, with no change in its traditional policy instrument, the federal funds rate. This interest rate is the rate at which banks borrow from each other. The Fed believes that the factors affecting the economy in a negative way are temporary. No change in short term interest rate policy is warranted.

Economic growth remains slow, employment is not increasing fast enough to lower the unemployment rate, but inflation is moderating.

However, the Federal Reserve System has decided to implement “Operation Twist”. This action is to gradually increase the average maturity of the securities that the Federal reserve own. The table shows the current distribution of securities owned by the Fed.

Current Distribution 0f Securities Owned by the Fed as of September 2011
Treasury Bills (less than 1 year)	$18,423 million
Notes & Bonds (2 year – 20 year)	$1,631,024 million
Mortgage back securities (acquired to support banks during the financial crisis)	$884,945 million

Operation twist would result in the Fed selling short term securities (3 year maturity or less) and buying equal numbers of longer term maturities (6 years – 30 years) and to replace the mortgage backed securities as they mature.

The purpose of this action is to put downward pressure on longer term interest rates, including mortgages and corporate bonds. This should increase borrowing for home purchases and capital expansion by business.

A major concern of the Fed and a reason for the continuing slow recovery is that while banks have money to lend, they are simply holding these as excess reserves.

Bank Reserves as of September 2011
Bank Total Reserves	$1,660,440 million
Bank Excess Reserves (94.5% of total)	$1,568,590 million
Bank Required Reserves	$91,850 million

In normal times, banks hold few excess reserves.  Prior to the financial crisis in August 2008, bank excess reserves were 4% of total reserves compared to 94.5% in September 2011. Today, banks are holding vast amounts of excess reserves. We will not see a normal recovery from the recession until banks start lending their excess reserves. Operation Twist is designed to increase demand for these funds.

September St. Croix Valley Economic Dashboard Released

The UW- River Falls Center for Economic Research (CER) in partnership with St. Croix Economic Development Corporation (SCEDC) has released the September 2011 edition of the St. Croix Valley Economic Dashboard. The dashboard is a snapshot of the economic condition of the labor, consumer and housing markets in the three county St. Croix Valley. It presents the latest available data* in one convenient package and can be viewed on the CER's website at www.uwrf.edu/cer.

The economic recovery seems to be stumbling. The national economy created zero net new jobs in August ’11, but the unemployment rate held at 9.1%.  At the state level in Wisconsin, the unemployment rate for July ’11 was 7.8% up 0.2 percentage points from June ’11 but down 0.4 percentage points from one year previous. More troubling than the increase in the unemployment rate is the loss of 8,200 jobs in July and the downward revision of the number of jobs created in June by 1,500. On top of that, the Philadelphia Fed’s Leading Indicator is current projecting that the Wisconsin Economy will grow by less than one present over the next six months. Overall, the September dashboard is indicating that we may be entering a new recession. 

The unemployment rate in the St. Croix Valley continues to be below the average unemployment rate in the state. July ’11 unemployment rate is 6.9 percent, which is down slightly from one year previous. However, both total employment and labor force decreased during July suggesting renewed weakness in the local labor market.

Spending in the Valley, as measured by sales tax revenue, remained strong though. Sales tax revenue collected in August increased by 15.6% from one year previous, and new vehicle registrations increased by 20.1% from for one year ago. These metrics represent the most optimistic indicators this month. The housing market is still showing significant weakness.  Median home price is still below median price this time last year.

Wisconsin's St. Croix Valley is comprised of St. Croix, Polk, and Pierce counties. All three counties are located along the Wisconsin-Minnesota border. Two of the three counties, St. Croix and Pierce, are included in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington MN-WI metropolitan area, a 13-county region with of population of 3.25 million residents. For additional information on the September edition of the St. Croix Valley Economic Dashboard, contact Dr. Logan Kelly at cer@uwrf.edu or (715) 425-4993 or William Rubin at bill@stcroixedc.com or (715) 381-4383.

*Please note that most regional data is available with between a one and two month delay, thus the current month's dashboard will have data from previous months.