Short Term Interest Rates

So the mortgage crisis comes to this: Columbia's Fieldstone Mortgage enters bankruptcy proceedings, stiffing Wall Street's biggest names, and it's only a local story. Mr. Bernanke, here's another indicator you're losing control. If a major subprime lender leaves Morgan Stanley, Household International, Bear Stearns and others holding a $100 million bag and the national news media ignore it, maybe the problem is a heck of a lot bigger than most of us dreamed. Lower the short-term interest rates.

Talk about mixed signals.Over here is the green light: an accelerating economy spewing products and jobs.And here, at the same crossroads, is the 6-foot-4 cop with both hands raised: half a decade of meek inflation.What's a central banker to do?Tossed salad is common fare for the Federal Reserve when it sorts through economic indicators. But rarely are the signs as contradictory as they will be Tuesday, when top Fed officials next meet to set interest-rate and money-supply policy.The U.S. economy is buzzing into its seventh straight year of growth.

WALL STREET bulls, bears and straddlebugs do not run the U.S. economy and a good thing too. Anyone who follows the yo-yo gyrations of the stock and bond markets -- including the Fourth of July plunge after some very good news -- knows there is always a precise explanation for what has just happened plus some carefully hedged prognostications for what might lie ahead. It's part of the game.Right now brokerage houses and market tipsters are saying the Federal Reserve just has to raise short-term interest rates -- probably sooner rather than later.

Shares of NationsBank Corp., the nation's third-biggest bank, tumbled yesterday as fourth-quarter earnings failed to meet Wall Street's expectations. The company blamed lower interest rates.The Charlotte-based banking company that took over Baltimore-based MNC Financial Inc. and MNC's Maryland National Bank unit in 1993 said it earned $405 million in the last three months of 1994, up from $373 million in 1993.But the results worked out to only $1.46 a share, six cents short of the consensus estimate of analysts who follow NationsBank.

NEW YORK -- Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said last night that he was reluctant to cut short-term interest rates right away despite an increased risk of a mild recession.In the strongest statement of his intentions since economic growth began to stall earlier this year, Mr. Greenspan said it was "uncertain" whether the country would slip into a recession in the next few months.But in an open acknowledgment of the new constraints imposed by currency markets, he said it would be a mistake to stimulate business activity by reducing rates if that led investors to pull money out of the United States, weakening an already shaky dollar.

It is one of Washington's longest-running battles, a battle of polite pejoratives and economic esoterica, and no one expects Maryland's Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes and Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan will ever agree. In the latest skirmish, Mr. Greenspan is accusing Senator Sarbanes of advocating the "forced feeding" of the economy while the Marylander rejoins by charging that the Fed chairman is plotting a "preemptive strike" against the recovery.What set off the latest fireworks was Mr. Greenspan warning the Fed may "at some point" raise short-term interest rates to head off a return of inflation even before outward signs become visible.

What's wrong with this picture?A big industry goes through a week of companies' earnings reports. They are uniformly fabulous, with fatter profit margins, bigger overall gains and financial ratios that were unusual even during the boom times of the late 1980s and unheard of during the debacle of the early 1990s, when it looked like many of the industry's biggest players might not survive.So why are bank stocks generally languishing?The answer, ultimately, is interest rates. But as with interest rates themselves, what is hitting bank stocks is more a fear of the future than what has happened so far.Just as the bond market plunges on signs of future inflation -- rather than the current picture revealed in monthly price data -- so banks are getting pounded by fears that eventually short-term interest rates will rise, matching the sharp rises in long-term rates throughout 1994.

NEW YORK -- Long-term interest rates shot sharply higher for the second day in a row yesterday, leaving the nation's central bank in a bind that it is probably finding very uncomfortable.Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is likely to face some hard questions -- and criticism -- from Congress on Tuesday when he presents his annual review of the bank's interest-rate policy.The Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates Feb. 4 for the first time in five years in an effort to get a step ahead on any jump in inflation and to convince traders and investors that the central bank's anti-inflation vigilance was beyond reproof.

WASHINGTON -- In a signal that the Clinton administration is prepared to accept at least some brakes on the U.S. economic recovery, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen predicted yesterday that the economy would have to weather a period of higher interest rates and declining stock prices in 1994.His remarks suggest that the administration, which had hoped that low interest rates would continue to feed the recovery through 1994, now believes there will be some economic speed bumps along the way. Even so, Mr. Bentsen said, the administration expects the recovery to remain on track and unemployment to subside next year.

WASHINGTON -- An unusual pattern of growth has emerged in the U.S. economy in the last few years that poses a predicament for the Federal Reserve as its top officials gather here today to decide whether to continue raising short-term interest rates.For the first time since the late 1940s, the economy is growing strongly despite a sustained drop in purchasing by federal, state and local governments.The private sector is the only engine of growth in this recovery, unlike every other recovery in the last four decades, in which government spending accounted for at least part of the expansion.

WASHINGTON - -With the recession easing, the Federal Reserve reached a new milestone Wednesday after two years of unprecedented intervention in the economy: It began the pullback. The central bank said that in October it will wind down a program to purchase U.S. government bonds, a first step in what could be a multiyear high-wire act. The Fed wants to remove its supports for the economy soon enough to prevent inflation but not so soon that the fragile recovery is quashed. After a two-day meeting, Fed policymakers pointed Wednesday to evidence that "economic activity is leveling out."

So the mortgage crisis comes to this: Columbia's Fieldstone Mortgage enters bankruptcy proceedings, stiffing Wall Street's biggest names, and it's only a local story. Mr. Bernanke, here's another indicator you're losing control. If a major subprime lender leaves Morgan Stanley, Household International, Bear Stearns and others holding a $100 million bag and the national news media ignore it, maybe the problem is a heck of a lot bigger than most of us dreamed. Lower the short-term interest rates.

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve staged another pre-emptive strike against a potential economic slowdown yesterday, cutting short-term interest rates by a quarter percentage point to the lowest level in almost two years. After a half-percentage-point cut in September, the central bank continued its attack against the prospect of more economic damage from a severe housing correction that has put financial markets in turmoil, largely because of a surfeit of subprime mortgages to marginally qualified borrowers.

WASHINGTON -- The economy is sluggish and gasoline prices have hit a record. The stock market is booming and joblessness is low. The housing market is slumping and so is the value of the dollar. And inflation is up slightly and still alive. But the Federal Reserve? It's as steady as a rock. For the seventh straight meeting, the nation's central bank decided yesterday to make no change in interest rates. It's been this way for almost 11 months, and could be that way for the foreseeable future.

NEW YORK -- Ben S. Bernanke, the newly installed Federal Reserve chairman, suggested yesterday that the central bank will need to pay more attention to global financial conditions in setting interest rates, moving beyond its traditional focus on domestic economic forces. In a speech to the Economic Club of New York at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan, Bernanke said that to understand the reasons behind movements in American bond yields "an explanation less centered on the United States might be required."

To pause or not to pause, that is the question facing the Federal Reserve today. For 10 straight meetings, Chairman Alan Greenspan's central bank has gradually increased short-term interest rates in a campaign to bring them back to a more "neutral," or normal, level. Another increase had been expected before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast - and sent gasoline prices soaring and consumer confidence sinking. But now, the Fed finds itself besieged by pressure to wait until its Nov. 1 meeting before boosting interest rates again.

An index of U.S. mortgage applications fell 0.9 percent last week to the lowest level since the end of May, as rising interest rates made it less appealing for homeowners to refinance, a survey of lenders showed last week. The Mortgage Bankers Association's measure of home purchases and refinancing decreased to 745 in the week ended Aug. 5 from 752.1. Refinancing declined 3.3 percent. Mortgage rates that have increased in five of the past six weeks are deterring refinancing and may begin to put off potential homebuyers, economists said.

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates another notch yesterday, and it suggested that it will keep raising them gradually over the next year. The Fed, with its third rate increase in three months, pushed the benchmark federal funds rate on overnight loans between banks up to 1.75 percent from 1.5 percent. The increase came less than seven weeks before the presidential election on Nov. 2. But while incumbent presidents normally cringe at the prospect of higher rates before an election, the increases are unlikely to pose any threat to President Bush because consumers and businesses have felt little if any tangible impact thus far. Long-term interest rates, which drive home mortgage rates and many commercial loans, have actually edged down in recent months as fears of inflation have receded.

Popular wisdom says rising interest rates are bad all around. But, for many Americans, higher rates aren't an enemy. They're a friend. The interest return on long-term U.S. Treasury bonds is the highest in 22 months. That ought to get the attention of investors who are sitting with large sums in cash accounts that earn next to nothing. Rates on corporate and municipal bonds also have jumped this year. The upshot, say financial advisers, is that people wondering how they are going to fund their retirement ought to consider what longer-term bonds can offer in interest earnings and principal preservation.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan offered yesterday his most optimistic outlook for the economy since he took over leadership of the central bank in 1986. And he gave no indication that the Fed is inclined to begin raising short-term interest rates soon. Bond prices moved sharply higher and stocks rose as well after Greenspan made his appearance on Capitol Hill. Greenspan, in his semiannual report to Congress on monetary policy, said "the prospects are good" for a "sustained expansion" of the economy.