The Impact of Quantitative Easing, Commercial Banks, and Stock Buybacks on Economic Growth

Financial bubbles: are we in another one? How can the stock market almost triple in value during a period of mediocre growth (2009–2020)?

In the movie All The President‘s Men, a source of the reporter, Bob Woodward, nicknamed ‘Deep Throat,’ informs him that he needs to follow the money to solve the mystery of Watergate. To understand how the stock market can almost triple in value during a period of mediocre economic growth (2008–2020), we must do the same.

The Fed and Commercial Banks

The Federal Reserve System—a.k.a. the Federal Reserve and, informally, the Fed—is the central banking system of the United States. It is where banks deposit their money. The deposits, called reserves, are how banks pay other banks. Say your bank is Wells Fargo, and you write a check for $2,500 to your car mechanic, who happens to bank at Citi. Wells deducts $2,500 from your checking account. Then it transfers $2,500 from its, reserve account at the Fed to Citi’s reserve account. Citi then increases the mechanic’s checking account amount by $2,500. No actual cash moves—it is just a series of interlocking IOUs, all handled electronically.

Before the 2008 financial crisis, banks did not keep many reserves because, if some banks were short of them, they could always borrow them from other banks. However, when the housing market crashed, some banks were afraid that other banks were insolvent. So the healthier ones stopped lending them their reserves, and the payment processing system described above fell into jeopardy.

TARP

Through its Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the federal government authorized $700 billion to the financial system. ^[i]By backstopping the banks in this way, the government prevented the reserve payment processing system from freezing. Had the Fed not acted, the economy would have ground to a standstill, and a depression would most likely have followed. The Fed also slashed the federal funds rate, the minimum interest rate at which the Fed hoped banks would borrow reserves from other banks. This rate eventually became zero, but the economy still languished.

Enter Quantitative Easing (QE)

Starting in late 2008, with a touch of a keyboard, the Fed created trillions of dollars to buy bonds. The banks that sold the bonds ended up with reserves; reserves are used only among banks, however, so very little of that money made it into the economy. To push new money into the economy, the Fed also bought bonds from non-banks, such as pension plans and asset managers.

By ‘new money,’ I mean money that was added to the economy without being yanked from someone else’s account. Usually, when someone sells an asset, the buyer’s bank account is reduced by the price paid for that asset. For example, if I sell you a bond for $10,000, your bank account will drop by $10,000. But with QE, the Fed created the money, so the sellers received it without anyone’s bank account dropping. This meant that additional money and purchasing power entered the economy. Some of the new money bankrolled the oil and gas shale boom, but a lot of it was used to buy existing stocks and high-yield bonds. Those purchases pushed up the prices of those financial assets, but buying existing financial assets does very little to help Main Street.I

Commercial Banks and Money

Commercial banks also create new money when lending. For example, let’s say you go to your bank for a $100,000 home equity loan. The bank reviews your credit and decides to give you a loan and, with the click of a mouse, credits your account $100,000. No one’s bank account is reduced by $100,000. The $100,000 is new money, which creates new purchasing power for the economy.

Because banks create money out of thin air, they favor lending for the purchase of existing assets rather than lending for investment or the creation of new assets. That way, existing assets can act as collateral; if the borrower fails to pay the loan, the bank has an asset it can sell. Post-housing crisis, the one area in which bank lending is surging is to hedge funds and private equity. ^[ii]However, like QE, most of that new money goes into buying existing assets, such as stocks and high-yield bonds.

Stock Buybacks

Companies spend on plants, equipment, products, buyouts of other companies, debt payments, or buybacks of their own stock. Only spending on plants, equipment, and products, however, transmits directly into economic growth, because payment for goods helps their suppliers to prosper.

For the past ten to fifteen years, stock buybacks have been the preferred method of spending because they reduce the amount of outstanding stock that boosts earnings per share, making companies appear more profitable. Today, many executive salaries are paid in stock, and the level of stock compensation depends on earnings per share. In 2013, Standard & Poor’s 500 companies spent a total of $477 billion on stock buybacks.^[iii] Moreover, that stock was purchased after the stock market had increased by over 100%. Companies don’t use new money for buybacks, but the money they do use is no longer available to fund plants, equipment, products, and so on.

Money and Financial Bubbles

The Fed used to do what Deep Throat recommended: It followed the money, harnessing its powers as a regulator to get some of its new money into new investments—research, infrastructure, plants and equipment, and so on—and limit the amount of new money that went into existing financial assets.

But then the Fed began to focus less on where the money went and more on its cost (i.e., the interest rate) to try to control new money. Commercial banks know the best policy. And now much of the new money created by banks goes into buying existing assets. Corporations have also gotten into the act with massive stock buyback programs. As a result, economic growth is generated only when assets rise, as so-called wealth effect (i.e., house or stock price) increases cause people to spend on other things. (The wealth effect is more pronounced with housing because more people own homes than stocks.)

When most new money did go into the new investments mentioned above, housing and stock prices also went up—but they were the beneficiaries, not the drivers, of economic growth. More people benefited when new investment fueled economic growth. Plus, there were fewer financial bubbles.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the stock market has almost tripled in value during a period of mediocre economic growth (2008–2020) due to the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program, commercial banks creating new money when lending, and corporations spending on stock buybacks. While these policies have helped to prop up the stock market, they have done little to help Main Street. Moreover, these policies have created a situation where economic growth is generated only when assets rise, leading to more financial bubbles. To avoid this situation in the future, the Fed should focus more on where the money goes and less on its cost.

These are the opinions of Financial Advisor Tim Hayes and not necessarily those of Cambridge Investment Research. They are for informational purposes only and should not be construed or acted upon as individualized investment advice. Content provided via links to third party sites should not be considered an endorsement of content, which we cannot verify completeness or accuracy of.