Earlier this week, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, said the recession was “very likely over” but that the unemployment rate would likely still go up. There’s a lot of talk about a “jobless” recovery, that is a recovery in which new jobs aren’t created, with the unemployment rate not falling back to the normal 5% for at least another four years. Bernanke specifically said that the recession was likely over from a technical perspective, which is to say that we’ll probably still feel like a recession even if we don’t have two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.

So I wanted to know from you – do you think the recession is over? It’s one thing to look at “statistics” and declare victory, it’s another to look people in the eye and tell them that the recession is over.

Personally, I think that you can throw technical out the window because regular people don’t really care. Until people stop being afraid they’ll lose their jobs because of the economy, the recession isn’t going to be over. There have been a lot of positive things about this recession – Americans are repaying debt and saving more, frugality has made a resurgence, and there’s been a greater emphasis on emergency funds.

So… is the recession over?

(Photo: arvindgrover)

Do you know what the average net worth is in the United States?

Every three years the Federal Reserve Board does a survey of consumer finances, which looks at a wealth of financial information, including income and net worth. They even have statistics of the percentage of people who use the Internet to find financial data broken down by the age of the head of household (did you know that in 2007, 16.5% of families with the head of household above 75 years of age used the internet?)

Well, that’s where I turned to find out the average net worth of an American family.

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This week, the Federal Reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the National Credit Union Administration, after receiving a bazillion comments (really 65k+) on Regulation AA (Unfair or Deception Acts or Practices, by financial institutions in connection with consumer credit card accounts and overdraft services for deposit accounts), approved changes that make credit cards more friendly to consumers. While it will be until July 1st, 2010 before the regulations take effect, here’s what will change.

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I’m a huge fan of credit cards and I’ve never been in credit card debt before. I’ve been fortunate enough to learn the dangers of easy credit and was never seduced by its siren song, or her underhanded tactics like double cycle billing. The latest saga involving credit cards is debate in Washington over the proposed consumer protection rules offered by the Federal Reserve Board under an update to Regulation AA (Federal Trade Commission Act) — Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices.

Would you like to contribute? Here’s the press release discussing the proposals, simply scroll down to Proposals for Comment and click on Submit comment underneath Regulation AA.

My thoughts:

Freezing Interest Rates

One of the proposals is prohibiting banks from increase rates on pre-existing credit card balances. At first glance, this makes total sense. When you sign on the dotted line for a mortgage, you are aware of how the interest rate will behave. On a 30-year fixed mortgage, it will never change. On a 5/1 adjustable rate mortgage, it will be set for five years, then change every year after that. While in the last few years this was abused, in principle is makes total sense. You know what you’re getting into. With credit cards, the rate is always variable and can always change. However, you accept that when you apply for and begin using the card.

That being said, I do think that credit cards should be adjusted to reflect the way it’s actually being used and that requires that rates be locked at the time it is being spent. The consequence of this is that all interest rates will rise because it reflects a greater risk assumed by the credit card company and credit cards will be harder to get. You provide no proof of income when you apply for a credit card, perhaps that will change.

Application of Payments

Consumers taking advantage of 0% for life offers recognize this little line item, credit card companies apply payments to the lowest interest rate first. For example, recent 0% for life offers usually require two or three purchases a billing cycle. The cost of those purchases is at the prevailing rate, usually much much higher, and payments are applied to the 0% offer.

Consumers should be allowed to pay down whatever balance they want, not be forced to pay the lower offer. In all cases, this will be the amounts with the highest interest rate. Don’t listen to Dave Ramsey, you want to pay the higher interest rates first, not the ones with the smallest balances.

Double Cycle Billing

This is tactic is just underhanded. If you’re an impartial observer, you can understand variable interest rates because credit card companies put it plainly in their agreements. Double cycle billing? Give me a break. Double cycle billing is when they take the average of your two previous bills and charge interest on that. I don’t even know why this was even acceptable in the first place.

Summary

Obviously, the banks don’t like it:

“We are deeply concerned that these rules will result in less competition, higher consumer prices, fewer consumer choices and reduced consumer access to credit cards,” President and CEO Edward Yingling [of the American Bankers Association] said in a statement.

I don’t agree that they go to far, I think they’re great proposals, but I do agree that it will result in less competition, higher prices, fewer choices, and reduced access but that’s exactly what we need. We don’t need credit card offers piling up in our mailboxes, we don’t need the average family credit debt to be around $10k, and we honestly will survive if there are fewer credit card companies.

Weigh in on proposed credit card laws [CNN Money]

(Photo: thetruthabout)

Do you ever read the news or watch television and wonder what those speakers mean when they say “the market predicts the Fed will [increase rates/cut rates/do nothing]?” I have.

What they are referring to is the federal funds futures market where traders buy and sell options contracts linked to the federal funds rate. Unlike other options, where an actual asset could be delivered (an oil futures contract is actually a contract to buy or sell oil at a future date), the federal funds futures contract is a little different. Rather than butcher the definition, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland:

A fed funds futures contract is an interest rate futures; i.e. a futures contract whose value is based on a fixed-income security or interest rate. The underlying interest rate for the fed funds futures contract is the average daily effective federal funds rate for the delivery month. The final settlement price for a contract is 100 minus this average rate.

When the market “predicts” the next Fed action, it’s really what the wisdom of the masses (the fed futures trading masses) believe, based on their trading actions, what the future federal funds rate will be in the delivery month of the option.

Where can you find this information easily? The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s Fed Funds Rate Predictions page! It’s updated daily and has tons of information (check out the excel spreadsheet you can download).

How can you use this? Outside of fun trivia, one way to take advantage of this is to avoid buying long term CDs if the prediction says the rates will go up and to buy CDs when the rates are going down. While the predictive ability spans only a few meetings in the future, it can give you a better idea if you’re deciding what to do. Of course, since everything is measured in probabilities, anything can happen.

If you think interest rates are falling, put some of your savings into a CD. Since last August (2007), the Federal Reserve, haunted by the spectre of a slowing economy, had been hacking and slashing the Federal Funds and Discount rates. During that run, and until just recently, the prevailing attitude on Wall Street was that the Fed was going to continue cutting the rate until the threat of future inflation balanced out the threat of a recession. With this last twenty five basis point cut at the end of April, the prevailing attitude changed. Analysts now believe the Fed will stand pat and potentially even raise rates in the future.

During those rate cuts, all of the high interest online banks dropped their savings account interest rates dramatically. Since January of this year, the interest rate on E*Trade’s online savings account fell from 4.95% to 3.01% (only to increase, just recently, to 3.15%). ING Direct account holders saw their rates fall from 4.10% to their current rate of 3.00%. If you were able to purchase a CD at the prevailing higher yield online savings account rates for even a year, you’d be sitting pretty on those funds right now and that’s why CDs become popular during a falling interest rate environment.

This is where you say: “Jim, I’m not an idiot, I know that if the rates are going lower then I want to lock in good rates.” Yes, you are not an idiot but the point is I didn’t lock in any funds in CDs, except for my laddered emergency fund, because I didn’t recognize that I should have (or at least should have considered it). It wasn’t an error of judgment but one of ignorance.

Everyone knew rates were going to be cut but not everyone realized they should’ve considered putting a little bit away in certificates of deposit. (I can confidently say that because I know I didn’t) So, the next time you think rates are going to stagnate or fall, lock a little away in CDs.

The Fed did what everyone expected this past week, cutting the federal funds rate by 75 basis points to 2.25%, a little less than what the market wanted (they wanted a full 100 basis point cut down to 2%). The federal funds rate has gotten a lot of press lately and many people have started to understand how the Fed Rate personally affects them. Some have been confused between the federal funds rate and the federal discount rate, which I tried to explain in the past, and wanted to learn why the fed rate affected the stock market, but overall I think it’s relatively well understood. The other popular rates that aren’t as well understood are the Prime Rate, the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), and the 11th District Cost of Funds Index (COFI).

Prime Rate

What is it? The prime rate is a generic term but in the US it primarily refers to the the Wall Street Journal Prime Rate. It is “the base rate on corporate loans posted by at least 75% of the nation’s 30 largest banks.” [Source: Wikipedia] Usually you can expect the rate to be about 3% higher than the Federal Funds rate so when the Fed drops its rates, you can expect the Prime Rate to fall as well (but not always). WSJ prints this rate about once a month.
Why does it matter? The Prime Rate is often the rate you see associated with credit cards, car notes, and all other types of consumer debt. For example, a card may have their variable purchase and balance transfer APR pegged to the Prime Rate plus 4.99%, so that rate will be the Federal Funds rate plus around 8.99%. Since the Fed cut the rate by 75 basis points, you should expect a similar fall in your interest rates. The Prime Rate is published by WSJ so it will lag the Fed by a little bit, so you might not see the lower rate for a little while.

London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR)

What is it? The LIBOR is “a daily reference rate based on the interest rates at which banks offer to lend unsecured funds to other banks in the London wholesale money market (or interbank market).” [Source: Wikipedia] In other words, it’s the Fed funds rate in London. Some other notable differences are that it’s a daily rate, announced after 11 AM by the British Bankers Association, and is an average of rates on inter-bank loans of up to 1 year with contributor banks. It’s a lot like taking a snapshot of the crowd at a sporting event, you get close but it’s obviously a continually moving target. Another difference between the two rates is that with the Fed funds rate you’re talking about the target that the Fed is trying to hit by adding liquidity. With the LIBOR, it’s the actual rate being charged and not a target. While it is an academic difference, it’s a difference nonetheless.
Why does it matter? Some adjustable rate mortgages are actually linked to the LIBOR, such as LIBOR + 2.75% or LIBOR + 2.0%; so when the LIBOR moves around, it can affect what your ARM is adjusted to.

11th District Cost of Funds Index (COFI)

What is it? Last but not least, we have the 11th District Cost of Funds Index (COFI), an index I never heard of before researching this article. The COFI is a little more complicated and is “computed from the actual interest expenses reported for a given month by the Arizona, California, and Nevada savings institution members of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco (Bank) that satisfy the Bank’s criteria for inclusion in the COFI (COFI Reporting Members).” [Source: FHLBank San Francisco] Like the Prime Rate, this rate is reported on a monthly basis but two months behind (so the January value is reported in March).
Why does it matter? Again, it’s an index used to adjust mortgages and other loans and it’s popular because it lags the market and is a stable measure. This means that it’s good when the rates are increasing, since it lags, but not as good when the rates are falling, since it lags. The reason why its stable is because it includes more factors such as loans from savings and checking accounts, CDs, etc.

Hope that clarifies things just a little bit more…

Nearly 1 year ago I wrote 50 Fun Facts about Credit Cards, a post that was very well received, so I figured why not follow that up one year later with another 50 fun facts post – this time talking about banks. I like reading about history so the first batch of facts revolve around the central bank, starting with the First Bank of the United States and ending with our current Federal Reserve system (you can see the progression!), then wash that meal down with some more entertaining facts like some other firsts, a few mind boggling statistics, and then some fun stuff like bank robberies and banking sponsorship information. It was fun (and educational) putting it together so I hope you enjoy reading the list. (much like last time, I added in a few bonus facts!)

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