It's being called QE Infinity, but many experts say the Federal Reserve’s third round of quantitative easing (QE) has yet to have much impact on the economy or stocks markets.
Market pundits call the Federal Reserve's latest QE program QE Infinity because it has no defined time limit. In The Fed will purchase $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities a month. The idea is to push down mortgage rates in order to prompt homeowners to refinance, boost housing markets and provide homeowners extra cash to spend, which will then rejuvenate the economy.
But many economists doubt it will prompt the unemployment rate to fall, and more are concluding that the Fed is running out of bullets.
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Stock markets have not increased since the Fed announced QE Infinity, also known as QE3, last month. They've been flat or actually slightly lower.
"We've been range-bound as everyone digests the information," Robert Laura, president of Synergos Financial Group in Brighton, Mich., told CNBC. "There's nothing that's going to take us any higher. The headwinds out there are too large for QE to overcome."
Laura expects stocks to soon falter, following a pattern of previous QE efforts. The Dow will drop to around 12,600, providing investors a chance to buy on the dip, and then start rebounding, but that rebound would come in spite of QE, not because of it, he told CNBC.
"You can’t come in at this point and expect things to move higher," he said, according to CNBC. "There’s no major catalyst waiting in the wings and a number of economic headwinds remain. It’s all flash with no substance right now."
Economic research consulting firm Capital Economics sees little sign that unemployment will fall below 8 percent in the next few months or that gross domestic product growth next year will be as strong as the Fed hopes, CNBC reported. Poor domestic capital expenditures, Capital Economics stated in a note, shows that the economy remains stalled, which means the latest QE might last longer and be larger than expected.
QE3 has been mocked as “‘Buzz Lightyear’ easing, because it goes to infinity and beyond,” writes Dan Burrows for InvestorPlace.com. Critics say it is hurting savers today and might cause hyperinflation down the road.
Some also worry that it is artificially inflating stock prices, he writes.
"Indeed, Fed easing may be the only thing propping up the stock market amid weak economic data and declining corporate earnings."
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