It was two short years ago that the Fed, in its relentless attempt to push everyone into the biggest equity bubble of all time, did something many thought was merely a backdoor ploy to forcibly reallocate capital out of the $2.7 trillion money market industry and into stocks when, as we wrote in July 2012, it contemplated imposing suspensions of fund redemptions to “allow for the orderly liquidation of funds assets.” Or in other words “gate” money markets.
Since then various iterations of this proposal have been attempted, either by the Fed or the SEC, however due to stern industry push back (and the relatively modest amount of money at stake) the attempt to force investors to rotate their funds out of money markets (because it is quite clear that if the Fed is hinting at gating issues with a given asset class, it is only a matter of time before the hint becomes a reality) has failed, and as a result the total amount of notional capital held at money market funds has been largely unchanged in recent years.
Here comes attempt number two.
Only this time it is no longer aimed at money market funds, but that other most hated, by the Fed, asset class: bond funds, whose relentless inflows, we shouldn’t have to remind readers are the main reason why the propaganda myth of a recovery, and the resulting con game, keep crashing and burning, as it is impossible to spin a 2.5% 10 Year yield as indicative of anything remotely resembling a recovery, and shows at best, a semi-deflationary world. Said inflows also are recurring evidence that whatever retail money remains unallocated, continues to go into the one asset class which is actively disparaged by the Fed at every opportunity.
In brief, if anything, the Fed would prefer that all retail investors pull their money out of bonds funds (and money markets of course), and invest them into 100x+ P/E biotech stocks. Because after all, today’s stock market is nothing but the biggest Fed-propped Ponzi scheme in existence.
