The December 11th posting of FNMA mortgage rates had an unusual event, a second post with mortgages trading 50 basis points lower. Here one can conclude the Fed must be finally now printing money to force rates down. With effective fed funds trading near zero already, any rate move today is a symbolic gesture, but one that actually reduces the amount of interest the Fed pays to banks that hoard excess reserves. I've still yet to figure out why if you could borrow in the interbank market at .12% and get paid 1.00% from the Fed, why would you not borrow as much as possible to arb the difference. Here the FDIC outlines that it will not insure short term debt of a period of less than 30 days, so it doesn't look like a 75bp outlay is required to borrow in interbank. Am I missing something an informed banker can explain? In a world where 90 day T-bills are hitting negative yields where you can instead get paid to borrow money in excess reserves for a free .85% (1% - .15% avg effective fed funds lately), nothing seems to make sense. With that said, Baltic Dry is bouncing, the precious metals are the strongest commodities, and the dollar has recently been weakening. Longer dated LIBOR rates are coming down, so trust between banks is gradually increasing. Besides the 30 year treasury at 2.95%, which has taken on a life of its own, the panic with extreme dislocations has subsided, leaving us only with a bunch of capital markets with historically strange aberrations. I simply don't know what to conclude yet.