Federal Reserve Might Eventually Have to Start Purchasing Stocks

[Santander]

He's apparently an idiot who doesn't understand why the Fed has intervened in the debt market. It wasn't to prop up the debt market, tho that was a side effect, but to ensure that businesses could obtain needed capital by issuing new debt at rates they could afford. Buying equities in the secondary market wouldn't help businesses obtain capital.

I'm pretty sure the chief investment officer at Guggenheim, a highly respected firm, knows what he's talking about. The Fed is, essentially, becoming a sovereign wealth fund, and it's a pretty common belief among leading people in finance that they may start buying ETFs. Propping up stock prices can help firms raise capital (issuing new stock), and perhaps more importantly during these times, defend against takeovers, and even defend against activists. Not to mention the economic effects of the stock market tanking.

[Santander]

He's apparently an idiot who doesn't understand why the Fed has intervened in the debt market. It wasn't to prop up the debt market, tho that was a side effect, but to ensure that businesses could obtain needed capital by issuing new debt at rates they could afford. Buying equities in the secondary market wouldn't help businesses obtain capital.

I'm pretty sure the chief investment officer at Guggenheim, a highly respected firm, knows what he's talking about. The Fed is, essentially, becoming a sovereign wealth fund, and it's a pretty common belief among leading people in finance that they may start buying ETFs. Propping up stock prices can help firms raise capital (issuing new stock), and perhaps more importantly during these times, defend against takeovers, and even defend against activists. Not to mention the economic effects of the stock market tanking.

The Fed should have no concerns about takeovers or activists. Any effect on propping up IPO prices would be because the market came to believe that the Fed would continue to purchase equities for the foreseeable future, and an open-ended spigot would be a bad thing.

Takeovers destroy value and reduce competition. And issuing stock is not limited to IPOs. Now, whether these things are within the purview of the Fed or not is debatable, but it's not purely to inflate asset prices, and central banks around the world are already doing it.