July 2013 Macro Pulse -- The “Feral Hogs” are Winning

Markets, particularly debt markets, were roiled in the aftermath of Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke’s late May announcement the U.S. central bank may begin “tapering” (reducing) its Quantitative Easing (QE) program, this fall. 

We found it telling that Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher “warned the ‘feral hogs’ of financial markets against trying to force the Federal Reserve to shelve plans to slow its bond buying” of $85 billion per month.  “Markets tend to test things,” Fisher told the Financial Times in an interview published on June 24. “I don’t think anyone can break the Fed…. But I do believe that big money does organize itself somewhat like feral hogs. If they detect a weakness or a bad scent, they’ll go after it.”

For a bit of context…. Click here to read the entire July 2013 Macro Pulse recap.

The Macro Pulse blog is a commentary about recent economic developments affecting the forest products industry. The monthly Macro Pulse newsletter summarizes the previous 30 days of commentary available on this website.