Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and ...

When I was studying economics, the idea that an economy might face a “liquidity trap” seemed absurd. Basically, the concept of the liquidity trap was that the monetary authorities could not “push on a ...

Fear or Fear Not? My colleague John Rekenthaler recently wrote about the hazards of illiquid mutual fund investments. Long story short, mutual funds and illiquid investments are a potentially lethal ...

Europe may still be stuck in a liquidity trap. During the financial crisis, this economic idea came into play as economists worried the Federal Reserve's move to buy assets couldn't avoid this ...

Wall Street’s latest push into private markets may give individual investors and their 401(k) accounts access to shares of ...

Popular economics suggests that economic activity results from a circular flow of money in the economy: One person’s spending is a second person’s income, and the second person’s spending is a third ...

The USA is not in a liquidity trap anymore: "The output gap can be [estimated] by attempting to measure slack directly… …The ratio of employment to prime age (25 ...

The U.S. economy is confronting a toxic mixture: deflation, a liquidity trap and debt deflation, as well as rising household and corporate defaults. Put plainly, the signs of a "stag-deflation"--a ...

Author’s note: Just four hours after the publication of this article, the Federal Reserve has in fact made an unscheduled rate cut to zero percent and said it would restart quantitative easing, ...

LIQUIDITY traps: we can't stop talking about them. Since late 2008, the nominal interest rate target suggested by most standard monetary policy rules has been negative, leaving the American economy in ...