Tuesday 15 March 2016

How should rates change?

Today the American banking industry asked for raising rates, as their profits have been hit by the low interest rates. Moreover, they suggested lowering interest rates could affect the market confidence, rates should only be cut further when the economy is in very bad shape. The positive side of raising interest rates is to give some profits to the banking industry, which had losses over the last half a year and to show the market that the economy is good shape. The negative side is obvious as well. It will increase the difficulty for companies to get refinanced, leading to a decrease in investment. Currently, many large companies have "too good" cash flows on their balance sheets, benefiting from the low interest rate policy, and some of the cash has been thrown to the stock market by many buyback programs, instead of investment. In addition, the default rate increases, which increases the risk of the banking sector. Raising interest rates could increase banks' profitability and reduce their incentives to take risky strategies to increase profits. Providing some evidence of optimistic economic growth and raising interest rates can restore the market confidence as well. Increasing interest rates can cut large companies' unnecessary borrowing, thus improving financial resource allocation effectiveness. Therefore, in general, I believe it is a right time for the Fed as well as the Bank of England to raise rates with some supportive policies for small businesses.

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