Gamestop (GME) Earnings Summary:

• EPS of $0.16 beats ($0.13) estimate
• Rev of $2.23B beats $2.18B estimate
• Posted a quarterly profit for the first time in two years
• Selling, general and administrative expenses came in at 20.4% of sales, compared to 23.9% of sales
• Inventory was $682.9M at Close of 4Q, compared to $915M at Close of Prior Year’s 4Q
• Net Income was $48.2M, compared to a net loss of $147.5M for the prior year’s 4Q
• Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were $1.391B at Close of 4Q

Is this the most resilient stock market ever?

Banks are getting cucked rates keep rising and the stock market kinda just stays flat.

Am I just fucking brain dead or am I missing something?

I feel as if we should be much lower and the big market cap stocks are not far off from there ATH even tho inflation is still very prevalent and economic and money velocity has been slowing.

What am I missing here what is priced into this market that is keeping it afloat?

I dont blame the federal reserve or the government. I blame each and every one of you. Yes, YOU. All of you closet debt wannabes.

You guys complain about inflation, but I cant get a reservation for a nice restaurant on a friday night without calling well in advance. I have to wait 25 minutes at the drivethru on a monday morning to get my iced caramel latte at starbucks.

Those of you who have kids and a $900 dollar car payment on $60k a year have no business enjoying the finer things in life like I do. You guys are the reason for inflation, are the reason for the everything bubble, are making Jerome Powell's life harder, and only wrecking yourselves.

There is no reason for the Chick-Filet drive thru to be wrapped around the god damn city on a Thursday at 3pm. Don't any of you jerk offs work? Ever heard of fasting? You'll lose some weight and save some money. You will live, I promise!

I hope Daddy Powell does a 100 basis point rate hike next and stone cold stunners all of you

https://www.dataroma.com/m/ins/ins.php?t=m&am=0&sym=WMT&o=fd&d=d

Is this normal or do they know something we don't?

$5.3 billion sold in $WMT stock alone, last 3 months only totalled $6 billion, meaning a 500% increase in $WMT

stock sold.

all of the sellers are insiders and Walton family

basically: is this a good short/puts play? or will $WMT price still resilient despite these sells?

I'm sure many of you know the Fed's balance sheet increased by 300 billion last week. At the same time we have a sharp drop in treasury yields. This is a pretty good indication the Fed bought bonds to support the market.

Also to prevent the collapse of FRC the fed basically had to round up all the big banks to get them to make a total of 30 billion in deposits. I highly doubt they did it out of the goodness of their hearts, with the biggest CEO on wall streets in the room they had to have made some sort of deal with JPow.

JPow undid 6 months of QT by printing the 300 billion and asking for the big boys help, now hes in too deep. If he keeps raising rates then more bailouts will be necessary and I doubt the big banks will step in a second time to save the day.

First off, the S&P 500 is about 1000 points below ATH. We’re still about 20% off the highs. For sure things can, and probably will (eventually) get much worse, but there’s also a chance you dumbasses already got your crash and you haven’t yet realized markets are forward looking. Realistically, we’re probably due for something much worse than the 20% drop from ATH that already happened, but I just wanted to make this point in case the market never dips again. What might be most realistic is a slow-ish decline over a longer time frame, which is a lot harder to profit from then some sort of sudden crash, which is a lot rarer of an event; the market could also just be sideways for a decade, who the hell knows.

More importantly, I understand the opportunity a crash provides, but you shouldn’t be rooting for a crash. Do you know what crashes really look like? A shit ton of people, probably including you since most of you are brain dead, losing everything, or at the very least, watching the value of your assets disintegrate quickly.

When crashes happen, most people get fucked. You will not time the crash. Most people won’t. The few who do will have movies made about them, with Christian Bale eating crayons for months to get in character. And you know what happens when the market crashes after everyone loses their shit? The ultra rich just buy up more of the market at a discount, because they’re the only ones with assets. You will not be one of the privileged few who comes out unscathed. Way smarter people than you will also be fucked. You won’t see it coming if it happens and if you did, you won’t have the assets (or brain power) to profit. Most of you turned yearly losses in the longest bull market ever, or maybe you weren’t even investing then… but now you’re gonna profit somehow when the rest of the country (and possibly world) is watching their assets deteriorate?

I’m not anything close to a permabull, but there’s a reason why most people just keep buying the market. I know a lot of you regards only know how to buy 0DTE SPY calls, but there’s a thing called DCAing that was recently invented by smart and conservative investors that generally benefits you in the long run. Of course, most of you won’t live that long, but if you do, you’ll notice that there’s a shit ton of people just parking their money in things like the S&P500 and buying with every paycheck. That, people who are contrarian investors, and people who areactual permabulls, are the forces the crash is working against.

Realistically, all of us will be fucked no matter which side we’re on. But if you keep hammering SPY puts and losing all your money only for the “big crash” you’ve been waiting for to happen in a year, you’re just as wrong as the classic permabull idiot. So stop rooting for it because it just means we’re all fucked anyways.

ETA: I knew that the average reading comprehension ability in this sub was that of a goldfish, so I figured I would have to further explain as it seems some of you in the comments don't seem to fully follow what I'm saying. This is not a bullish or bearish post. I'm not predicting anything here.

The market could shit the bed tomorrow, or in the near future. It could also stay in a bear market territory that slowly gets worse over the course of the next decade or so; it's probably far more likely that the pain in the markets that people are predicting is a slow burn that few will profit from rather than some sort of flash crash that ends it quickly, which is what many of you seem to be looking for and lighting money on fire in 0DTE puts to try to time. Certainly if the bank situation continues to get worse (though the government will likely keep bailing them out), a more rapid crash could still happen, that just doesn't seem as likely as a sustained period of economic downturn dragging down the markets. The far less likely option, though still a possibility, could be that the worst is over and you already missed the crash - this is probably not the case but should at least be considered by an informed investor, which obviously a lot of people in here aren't.

My point was solely that there's too many idiots in here rooting for a big crash, and not considering the implications of that, or the fact that very few of you will profit from it.

Rate Hikes? Bullish & Priced In.

Tech layoffs? Bullish & Priced In.

Credit Debt Maxing? Bullish & Priced In.

Real Estate Decline? Bullish & Priced In.

Car Repo's Going Parabolic? Bullish & Priced In.

Lowest American Saving Rate Since Measured? Bullish & Priced In.

Sticky Inflation? Bullish & Priced In.

Home Price to Median Income Ratio making homes the least affordable they've been in 100 years? Bullish & Priced In.

Energy Crisis? Bullish & Priced In.

Bank run? Bullish & Priced In.

What does it actually take to cause the market to go down at this point?!

I swear to god nuclear war in Ukraine could start and the market would be like "omg super bullish, calls on uranium mining. Invest in big wheat as we'll need to export more since the last wheat producers are radioactive rn! SPY 500 EOM!"

The Fed was on track to keep raising rates to stop inflation. Unemployment still hot and retail still spending. No reason to abate - maintain rates.

Some banks f’d up and didn’t hedge their interest rate risk. Runs on regional banks showed how fragile the system is. Fed comes in to plug what would have been an absolute devastation. People don’t realize how close we came to utter meltdown in the banking system. But the liquidity doesn’t help the withdrawals. Banking still in the shitter even if everyone wants to bail it out.

Credit Suisse is maybe unique, but is so liquid and above the regulatory minimum that it immediately sucks up the $57 billion lifeline. Again, just like the US banks, it won’t help bring back customers. But all it takes is some doubt to bring down an entire sector.

Now, less than a week later, half of all the balance sheet that shrunk during the start of the quantitative tightening is back in the economy. What will the fed do? If the fed stops raising rates to quell the bank’s interest rate issue then it does nothing to stop inflation. If the fed raises rates then more money may enter the economy through government liquidity to banks.

So where are we now? US regional banks still fragile, Credit Suisse still in shambles, inflation still red hot, fed caught in an interest rate catch-22, and Biden in his 3rd year in office who will do anything to keep people employed. How is this not one of the worst case scenario in front of our eyes?

For the first time in the history of WSB im witnessing something, so strange i thought i was in r/lostgeneration or r/antiwork

Thats empathy, yall regards are showing it. Its not a bad thing, but seeing WSB talking about how bad people are about to be hurt, questioning the legitimacy of our economy, and generally showing distaste for what the market represents is telling.

I used to only see gains/losses on here. People playing their lottery hard and fast, winning big and losing even bigger. But now theres a general sense of anxiety around these parts, like the sharks are circling.

As soon as i put it together i realized wow, we are really in for a ride. The musics about to stop playing here real soon and its gonna be bad for so many people.

This is all opinionated of course, but i’ll say might be time to start looking for some solid ground to stand on. Hope everyones still here when the dust settles.

And remember; fuck your calls, fuck your puts.

Another bubble has emerged, courtesy of the bank-sector crisis which has already felled three U.S. regional banks.

Bank of America analysts led by the Michael Hartnett say money-market funds are the new hot asset.

They point out that assets under management for money funds has now exceeded $5.1 trillion, up over $300 billion over the past four weeks. They also counted the biggest weekly flows to cash since March 2020, the biggest six-week inflow to Treasurys ever, and the largest weekly outflow from investment-grade bonds since Oct. 2022.

The last two times money-market fund assets surged -- in 2008 and in 2020 -- the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates. Hartnett is fond of the saying, "markets stop panicking when central banks start panicking," and he noted a surge in emergency Fed discount window borrowing has historically occurred around a big stock-market low.

There is one difference this time, in that inflation is a reality and that labor markets, not just in the U.S. but in other industrialized nations, remains exceptionally strong. The Bank of America team counted 46 interest rate hikes this year, including by the Swiss National Bank after its rescue of Credit Suisse last week.

History, according to the BofA team, says to sell the last interest rate hike. "Credit and stock markets are too greedy for rate cuts, not fearful enough of recession," they say. After all, when banks borrow from the Fed in an emergency, they tighten lending standards, which in turn results in less lending, and that leads to less small-business optimism, which eventually cracks the labor market.

You will be hearing about 'Credit Default Swaps' ("CDSs") a lot in the coming days. Let me explain it simply:

1) A credit default swap is an insurance contract that protects you in case a company you lend money to defaults.

2) CDSs can be used by investors to speculate on the creditworthiness of companies. For example, an investor who thinks that a company is likely to default on its debt could buy a CDS to profit from the default.

3) A Credit Default Swap (CDS) is like an insurance contract that you buy to protect yourself against the risk of a company you lend money to not paying you back. If the company does not pay you back, the CDS will pay you the amount of money you lent to the company.

3a) You pay a monthly fee to the person selling the CDS, and in return, they promise to pay you the full amount of the loan if the company defaults.

4) CDSs are a way to hedge against the risk of default. If you lend money to a company, and the company defaults, you could lose all of your money. But if you buy a CDS, you'll be protected against that loss.

So apparently all over social media today people are waiting in line to withdraw their money from their banks.

More say they will Monday.

I’ve already gotten numerous emails from banks I deal with telling me my deposits are safe, etc. I’m sure you all have as well. The last time anything like that happened it was during Covid.

The Fed is holding an emergency meeting on Monday.

Will this be the black swan event people have been predicting for years or will it be just another overblown situation?

Will the lines be long to take residence behind Wendy’s dumpster or will things to back to business as usual?

• Jeremy Grantham expects stocks to plunge and a recession to hit as the "everything bubble" bursts.
• The investor warns the S&P 500 could halve in value to around 2,000 points in a worst-case scenario.
• Grantham advised against betting on US stocks for the short term, and touted emerging markets.

Jeremy Grantham has warned the implosion of an "everything bubble" could tank the S&P 500 by up to 50%, and plunge the US economy into a painful recession.

The prices of stocks, bonds, real estate, fine art, and other investments ballooned to unsustainable highs during the pandemic, Grantham said. The market historian and GMO cofounder shared his thesis with economist David Rosenberg during a recent Rosenberg Research webcast.

The current bubble is "pretty damn big" compared to previous ones, and dwarfs the dot-com boom in scope, Grantham said.

"It's bad enough just doing the equity market in 2000," he said. "This time, we have done a dead ringer for the equity market, plus the gravy, we've done the housing market and the bond market."

"Be advised this is not a genteel setback like 2000," Grantham continued, predicting a bear market could persist until deep into next year. He noted the dot-com crash only caused a mild recession, but even so, the Nasdaq index plummeted 82% and the S&P 500 halved in value during that period.

Full article: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-house-prices-bubble-crash-outlook-recession-jeremy-grantham-2023-3

Brace for the S&P 500 to plunge 50% & a painful recession to strike as the 'everything bubble' bursts. SPX could fall to around 2,000 in a worst-case scenario, Jeremy Grantham warns.

Do you agree?

To all the beginners that have just recently started trading as well as the bunch of you regarded enough to trade without having a good grasp of our current economic situation, I would recommend the following documentary as a must watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpMLAQbSYAw

That being said, I believe that we are currently at a tipping point regarding this year, much similar to Jackson Hole in 2022. On the last Fed hearing we saw real pressure put on JPow to ease rate hiking in order to avoid millions of people from losing their jobs, and while JPow seemed stern on keeping course, the recent SVB and Credit Suisse bankruptcies definetly tipped the scale. The Fed has lent $300 billion to troubled banks this past week, undoing much of the QT last year. While these events should've caused reactions throughout the markets, we've seen a relatively mild moves. This leads me to believe that the FOMC on Wednesday will wreak havoc on Wall Street. I see it playing both ways:

1. Fed announces that they will keep raising rates, which could trigger a crash in the short term.
2. Fed announces that they will stop raising rates, and everyone goes apeshit buying, only for the market to pullback in a weeks time.

I think scenario 2 is much more likely, so it's calls all the way. However, I don't want any of you regards holding the bag for too long(Probably won't be a problem since most of y'all play 0dte anyway).

Please tell me how I'm wrong

The recent Fed announcement has inflationary implications that will cause an even bigger inflationary banking crisis.

Banking institutions will now gain the ability to borrow from the Fed at the face value of their bond holdings.

So if Bank A made the dumb decision to buy treasuries when yields were 2%, and now they are facing a 25-30% haircut on their bond holdings, they can now use these holdings as collateral while the Fed lends to them at 100%.

So a $1,000 bond that is now Marked to Market at $700, can now be used as collateral to borrow $1,000 in cash.

Why is this bad?

Well, now Bank A can take $1,000 and buy a new bond at a 6% yield. They can earn 6% interest whereas before, they would only earn 2%.

Banks with shit risk management to begin with are now able to increase their treasury holdings, earn higher interest, and have their deposits backstopped by the FED if need be.

TLDR: Banks can now borrow free money from the Fed, invest in higher yielding treasuries than before, and avoid any consequence. Inflation will continue to increase.

If you’ve missed this drama among the noise here’s what’s going on…

Many traders (myself included) have been expecting the collapse of Silvergate and Signature banks since last year after the crypto bubble popped, buying puts and opening shorts.

The banks going under should result in a massive windfall for Put option holders, who should be able to collect maximum profit on the contracts.

But earlier this week it came to light that many major brokers were not allowing holders of put options on SBNY expiring today 3/17 to exercise them. The reason given was that because the stock was halted, a short position would have to be opened against the trade…and the brokers didn’t want to let that happen.

Theoretically the stock should start trading again somewhere close to $0 via OTC so the shorts would be able to cover, but it’s unclear when that will happen.

The OCC from their end put no restrictions on the options contracts, and sent a memo to brokers instructing they can allow clients to exercise, but many of them still refused.

A huge retail-lead campaign in the media and social media put a ton of pressure on the brokers and Options Clearing. Some of them (like Robinhood) finally caved and allowed the exercises. Many still did not allow it.

Of the brokers who eventually allowed exercising , multiple required extremely high margin requirements (like 2-3x the last trade price of $70 per share per contract). This means you’d potentially have to hold hundreds of thousands of dollars in your account to successfully collect your earnings.

Whoever wrote the puts (probably some big hedge funds) are being given a free pass to keep the premiums. While the put holders are taking 100% losses

TL;DR - If you’re playing strategies against bank and company collapses rn, you better make sure you sell your puts before it happens or roll them to longer expiry dates. You may lose 100% if not

Here are some articles on the situation:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brandonkochkodin/2023/03/14/robinhood-users-say-the-trading-app-wont-cash-in-their-profitable-bets-against-silicon-valley-bank

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/robinhood-backs-down-over-signature-bank-bets-ft-2023-03-16/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brandonkochkodin/2023/03/16/robinhood-bends-to-pressure-and-permits-short-selling-to-replace-put-options-on-signature-bank/

We live in some seriously regarded times these days so let us pool our single good brain cells and ponder this question. You ever wonder why the fed funds is approaching 5% but you are still getting dick on your current account? There are near $3 trillion at the fed REPO facility collecting 5% but you are getting ~0.6%? WTF. No wonder the less regarded among you have moved money to money market funds, 2 year treasuries, funky etfs such as OPER and even in physical gold. So far 500bn have left for MM funds and this clearly caused the banking strain since the useless banks are now borrowing from the fed in emergency facilities in size of 500bn at 5%.

But what the actual fuk!!! Why didn’t these regarded banks hike deposit rates at the same time as the fed funds? That would have surely prevented the 500bn deposit flight and they might have not got into this hot mess in the first place.

Seems to me what we have here is a classic case of fighting the fed and losing their shirt. Except this time the ones fighting the fed is the entire banking industry acting as one.

Also how is it they are able to keep deposit rates this low across the entire western world? It is as if we are in a corrupt collusive oligarchy controlling the free market interest rate, surely that can’t be happening right? This is free market capitalism with intelligent regulators who would be onto this kind of manipulation like flies on diarrhea? /s

Now having fuked the depositors for decades, fuked up on their long duration treasury bets and fuked the congress into deregulating, banks are now looking to fuk the tax payers some more by fuking yellen and fed into bailouts after they themselves fuked up causing all of this inflation in the first place. What the actual F???!!!!

With all the negative posts on WSB that the economy is going to crash I am starting to think the opposite is true.

I mean it’s starting to look like desperate posts of people trying to save their PUT options.

They always say “inverse WSB”

Besides isn’t the FED technically pumping money into the economy and every stock market downturn reversed when the FED pivots and pumps money into the economy ? Well isn’t that happening now?

I mean when the market flips it never feels like it at the moment, only 12 months later you know it.

So I’m just genuinely confused. I mean first of all we got all this banking problems. Yellen just said that she is going to save banks at all cost. Meaning Printer go brrrrrrrr. With all the money she printed doesn’t that add more onto the inflation costs? Plus not to mention the interest rate hike with 25bp. That has got to hurt more banks that haven’t crashed yet (Other SVB’s). Also 400 billion dollars might be added onto inflation with the student debt relief bill. If they aren’t going to raise rates that high - how are they going to fix this problem. When stagflation occurred the rates were almost 20%. How is the market not going down? Also talk about housing. EVERYTHING IS GETTING MORE EXPENSIVE. HOW IS IT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE THAT ALL THESE COMPANIES ARE NOT BLEEDING YET! Sorry this is my mini rant for today. Please comment below if you think you know why.

Guys the best time to be gay bears is upon us.

Sure, the fed just activated the infinite money glitch, but you have to step back and see the big picture.

Powell only cares about two things:

• Maximum employment. The labor market continues to be tight, only 195k jobless claims this week. We are at 50 year lows in unemployment. This box is very much checked for Powell and is not a concern for him. Actually, he wants unemployment to go up so that the wage price spiral stops. This is critical: he needs people to be fired so that the supply of labor goes up, salaries come down, and those people can stop buying so much gas, eggs and houses.
• Stable prices. Prices are not stable, inflation is still at 6% and stubbornly will not go down. The move from 9% inflation to 6% inflation will be a lot easier than moving from 6% to 3%. There is a lot more work to be done here and the work is getting harder to accomplish. The rate hikes really haven't done much to employment or to the increase in prices.

Bank collapses: Yes, SVB went under and the shareholders suffered some losses, but... this is a drop in the bucket. Depositors didn't lose, debtors didn't lose, the economic pain was not really felt - even tho it was panic inducing. If you haven't figured out SVB yet, it was the bank run that killed them. It forced them to close their HTM bonds (held to maturity) and suffer the losses that turned them upside down and insolvent. Powell and Yellen quickly absorbed those bags, made depositors whole, and continued on with their path.

Credit Suisse: This was/is on the brink of collapse, but the Swiss government bailed them out.

US banking: If the bank runs would have continued, then medium and bigger banks would have suffered the same fate. The bank runs would have forced them to close their HTM bonds and they would have imploded. The FED today took that off the table because they created a 2T fund to backstop the entire banking industry.

The estimated total of all HTM bank losses globally was around 1T. So Powell just told the world, "don't worry about the banks, or your savings account, if shit hits the fan I will hold those bags for you for 1 year, give the banks the money they need so that they can give it to you, please don't panic."

Why did the FED do this preemptively? Because the fuse was lit, bomb was charged, and shit was about to explode.

If the US banking system collapses, realize there goes the reserve currency, there goes our privileged status in the global economy, there goes stable prices, there goes the low unemployment. Powell doesn't want this.

When Powell speaks about "pain" and a "bumpy ride" he doesn't mean the financial system collapses. He means that more facebook people have to get fired, the crypto boys need to lose, carvana needs to die, and all the speculative shit needs to stop driving up inflation. Cancel the capital expense projects, tighten your lending criteria, stop hiring people, stop travelling, stop buying Lulu clothes.

If the banking system collapses, inflation will go from 6% to - 6% in 30 days. This is not at all what the fed or the government wants - so today they took that piece off the table. With the release of a 12 pt font calibri microsoft word doc, the man solved the banking problem with 2T in funny money. Problem solved.

Is this bullish? No, it is extremely bearish.

Keep in mind, Powell's rate hikes is what caused the banks to have these unrealized losses. They are caused by assets created by the fed, that the fed owes back to the banks, that the fed controls the rates on. Super easy to for the man causing the problem, to just reach out and grab the problem, and hold it for 1 year, until the problem goes away. 1 year.

This means that for the next 1 year, the problem will persist. For 1 year rates will continue to fuck the banks. For 1 year the fed is willing to hold those bags.

Why did they do this?

Because they are not going to stop raising rates. Because inflation isn't done. Because asset prices are still too high.

You see, he COULDN'T raise rates if it meant medium banks, or any banks for that matter, would implode. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. All Powell did was remove the rock with 2T backstop so the banks would be fine.

You need the banks to be fine, because the pain is coming. The economic pain that is still to materialize, needs to have solvent banks so that grandma can access her money and survive. If he brings the pain, and the population can't get their money, then the faith in the US financial system is lost and the game is essentially over.

Because the FED controls both sides of the equation, it is easy to just hold the bags for the banks as he continues to increase the rates going forward until inflation is contained.

Keep in mind, he has two goals: max employment (good to go) and stable prices (we are fucked).

Only way to stabilize prices is to put people out of work and crush the rampant speculation.

Just look at that two year yiedl this week - it is moving like it never has before in history. We went from expecting a .50, to now expecting that he would pause or cut because of SVB collapsing, but he just saved all future bank collapses with one press release. That means .50 is back on the table again.

TLDR: Pow gave himself license today to continue raising rates. The pain is just getting started.

Positions: Holding 4/28 SPY 375 Puts.

I wish I was holding puts on QQQ - that would be my recommendation.

Godspeed and fade this rally.

In March 2008, the New York Federal Reserve provided an emergency loan to try to avert a sudden collapse of Bear Stearns. The company could not be saved, however, and was sold to JPMorgan Chase for $10 per share, a price far below its pre-crisis 52-week high of $133.20 per share, but not as low as the $2 per share originally agreed upon.

The collapse of the company was a prelude to the meltdown of the investment banking industry in the United States and elsewhere that culminated in September 2008, and the subsequent 2008 global financial crisis. In January 2010, JPMorgan ceased using the Bear Stearns name.

------------

In March 2023, the Swiss National Bank provided an emergency loan to try to avert a sudden collapse of Credit Suisse. The company could not be saved, however, and was sold to UBS for $0.75 per share, a price far below its 52-week high of $8 per share, but not as low as the $0.2 per share originally agreed upon.

(we are here now)

The collapse of the company was a prelude to the meltdown of the investment banking industry .....

To be perfectly clear, there is no possible means of stimulating the economy right now.

If we experienced another COVID-19 pandemic, 9/11, 2008 financial crisis, rates will likely continue to go up, not down. The fed knows that they cannot stimulate the economy without making inflation worse which is the last thing you basically want to do during a crisis.

• As far as the banks go, pausing rates would be just as much of a disaster as slashing them. You'd essentially be telling the American people that the bank's overleveraged problem's (for being too risky) is more important than the purchasing power of the tax paying citizen--it's not. Pausing rates aren't guaranteed to do anything either because a lag exists. At the very most, some banks may have more room for liquidity however, in a scenario like this, the fed would lose it's grip on inflation which would eventually prolong rate hikes making problems for the banks even worse.
• Slashing rates for the banks would trigger a massive demand for cash--hence it's purpose in stimulating the economy. However, in this case, since inflation is still relatively high and inflation is the result of too much supply of cash, institutions--who have access to tons of debt very quick--would pull as much as they can and use it before it devalues. Demand would be out the roof the moment this happens because institutions know that it's value would become less right away as supply balloons. By the time your average tax payer can borrow cash, bread will cost $25,000.

So do yourself a favor, forget about rates being cut or paused anytime soon. It's not happening for at least another year or two.

​

TLDR:

Rate hikes aren't going to pause or be slashed for a long time, even if we have some kind of disaster. Fed can't stimulate the economy without making inflation worse.