02-10-2021, 10:21 AM
Seeing what happened when the Fed announced they were turning on the spigot in a big way in March, 2020 (and kept opening it up throughout the year), I wonder if the "Crash of 29" would even merit a mention in history textbooks if the Fed had pursued similar interventionist expansionary monetary policy back then (would have been orders of magnitude more difficult, because of the Gold Standard).
On some metrics (employment), we touched/exceeded the worst of the Great Depression when lockdowns first went into effect, but a doubling of the Fed balance sheet saw the S&P 500 total return increase ~16% over all-time highs in 2020.
On some metrics (employment), we touched/exceeded the worst of the Great Depression when lockdowns first went into effect, but a doubling of the Fed balance sheet saw the S&P 500 total return increase ~16% over all-time highs in 2020.