Hawaiian Tropic Effect: Why the Fed's QE Isn't Over

Today the Federal Open Market Committee under Chair Janet Yellen is expected to end the third phase of quantitative easing, which is economist lingo for the Federal Reserve’s purchases of bonds to lower long-term interest rates. (The Fed’s official term is large-scale asset purchases.) In the chart below, note the sharp growth in the Fed’s total assets when its first round of quantitative easing began.