The previous chapter in the history of investing began on Tuesday 16 December 2008 in the offices of the Federal Open Market Committee, where the board responsible for the interest rates and money supply operations for the world’s most important economy was concluding a two-day meeting.
It was the group’s eighth and final of a tumultuous year. Among a long list of world-saving gatherings taking place in Brussels, London, New York, Basel and elsewhere in Washington in the weeks prior and after, it wasn’t the most dramatic. Nor did it spark a reset in stocks, which continued to fall until the spring of 2009.
But the attendees’ decision to first slash interest rates to zero and then start the asset purchases that we now know as quantitative easing kicked off an era that lasted until 2022, when the Fed chair Jerome Powell began rapidly hiking rates to tackle surging inflation and an overheating economy.
