Equities and "delta 1 assets" are very liquid, meaning there are a lot of buyers and sellers. This helps to make price discover more efficient. Anything outside of that means that there is much less liquidity and therefore inefficiencies in price.
Think about it this way. You are trying to sell an apple. In one room, there are 100 people trying to sell an apples and 100 people trying to buy them. In the other room there is 1 person trying to buy apples and no one selling. In the first room you don't have much leverage. The buyers can go to the other 99 sellers if they don't like your price. In the second room you have a ton of leverage. If the person wants to buy an apple they are either going to have to buy it from you or wait for another seller to enter the room.
When it comes to non equity or delta 1 assets, there tends to be more complexity in understanding the assets, which acts as a barrier to entry. If you have been in investment banking for 6+ years, you likely understand these complexities and can find pricing inefficiencies.
I think you might be conflating the interest rate's that the federal reserve sets and the inflation rate.
The federal reserve rate is essentially how much the US pay's their debtors. Bank's use this as a benchmark for how much they lend to their own borrowers.
The inflation rate is a calculation done based on a basket of goods. if the price of that basket of goods goes up, inflation is up. if it goes down, inflation is down.
When the federal reserve lowers their rates, it makes it easier to get money, and therefore the price of the basket of goods goes up.
When they make their rates higher, money is harder to get, and the price of the basket of goods goes down. The only problem with this is that there is also less money for labor, which means that unemployment goes up. The Feds job is to balance these two things.
To nit pick I would assert that the price basket is more dependent on the actually supply demand constraints but when there is free floating supply to be utilized but demand cannot catch. Than lowering interest doesn't necessary cause an increase in costs i.e inflation but can actually ruin the other way for some goods. That's why despite inflation being rough the actual cost in value of TV is so far down the economy grew and can now cheaply satisfy that demand. I don't think this was a great argument because I didn't link fed actions to that growth.
A better negative example is though in the US a large issue in the 1970s we had Regan Stagflation was austerity weakened demand and the feds levers simply couldn't deal with that type of inflation. The fed cannot directly influence solving supply issues only direct investment does that
You're right that stagflation shows the Fed can’t fix supply shocks with interest rates alone, but calling it “Reagan stagflation” and blaming austerity doesn't quite pass muster to me. The 1970s mess was mostly caused by oil shocks and entrenched inflation. The Volcker rate hikes (and Reagan’s early years) were the painful cleanup, not the cause.
I don't know Stagflation persists into the 1980s and well into it thanks to austerity even after the oil crisis is settle its a classic there is a crash the supply shock is over lets not spend money approach that lead to another recession in 1982. Iran's war ends in 1979. And most of the 1980s see a massive glut of oil[1] yet the US entered the Reagan Recession from 1982-1985. It is resolved by 1985 but austerity in that time is the opposite response needed and it shows in the GDP growth lagging. It might be poorly timed linked in name calling stagflation in Reagan stagflation since the inflation mostly ends by 1981 but its certainly not a Reagan boom
Calling the early ’80s “Reagan stagflation” isn’t quite right. Stagflation means high inflation and high unemployment at the same time. By 1981–82, inflation was already collapsing — from nearly 14% in 1980 to about 3% by 1983. What remained was a brutal recession with high unemployment, caused by Volcker’s deliberate rate hikes to kill inflation. Painful, yes, but that’s not stagflation anymore. The stagflation era ended with the oil shocks of the ’70s; the early ’80s was the hangover cure, not the disease.
Shockingly easy to get to though. LIRR to Jamaica, then AirTrain. Usually faster than a car, and more predictable than taking the A (which you have to be careful to choose the right one).
Does Microsoft really still sell Windows as a perpetual license to enterprises? I would have thought for sure that they would have found some way to sell it as a part of a bundle/subscription by now
Think about it this way. You are trying to sell an apple. In one room, there are 100 people trying to sell an apples and 100 people trying to buy them. In the other room there is 1 person trying to buy apples and no one selling. In the first room you don't have much leverage. The buyers can go to the other 99 sellers if they don't like your price. In the second room you have a ton of leverage. If the person wants to buy an apple they are either going to have to buy it from you or wait for another seller to enter the room.
When it comes to non equity or delta 1 assets, there tends to be more complexity in understanding the assets, which acts as a barrier to entry. If you have been in investment banking for 6+ years, you likely understand these complexities and can find pricing inefficiencies.