The Cleveland Fed Financial Stress Index has been rising all year and just broke out to what The Fed describes as a “significant stress” period. The last two times this level of financial instability was breaking out across US markets Bernanke unleashed QE1 (Q1 2009) and Operation Twist (Q1 2012). 

“Significant Stress” has been reached…

The CFSI tracks stress in six types of markets: credit markets, equity markets, foreign exchange markets, funding markets, real estate markets, and securitization markets. The CFSI is a coincident indicator of systemic stress, where a high value of CFSI indicates high systemic financial stress.

The question is – following a rate-hike just a few weeks ago – how quickly The Fed capitulates back to Bullard’s call for QE…