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American Morning
Minding Your Business: Thrown by the Fed
Aired January 29, 2004 - 07:24 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It took just a hint about the possibility of higher interest rates to cause uneasiness on Wall Street.
Andy Serwer explains why. He's "Minding Your Business" this morning.
Boy, the markets really responded, didn't they?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: They did. They did, Soledad. A rude shock to Wall Street coming from Washington in the form of a prepositional phrase? I mean, it's -- you know, come on. You've got to be a little tougher than that, people on Wall Street. Anyway, I'll explain.
The FOMC, part of the Fed, announcing yesterday they would keep interest rates at a 45-year low, 1 percent. But in the language where it talked about its take on the economy, it dropped a key phrase about leaving interest rates low for a considerable period. You can see there what happened in the markets. Yes, we were down 141 points on the Dow. There is Greenspan.
What that means is the Fed is setting the stage to raise interest rates sooner rather than later. And it's interesting to me, Soledad, will we look back at the winner of '03-'04 as the time when interest rates hit their low for, say, a 10 or 15-year period? It could be.
O'BRIEN: Other news you have: telemarketers, the do-not-call.
SERWER: Yes. We're going to do some whipping of everybody's favorite whipping boy. That's the telemarketing industry here. A ruling is coming out today from the FTC. Telemarketers have to identify themselves on caller IDs. Previously, when a telemarketer called, it usually said, "out of area." Gee, that's a little deceptive, I would think.
Now, telemarketers have to identify themselves or identify the company for whom they are selling services, and they have to put a phone number up that actually works that consumers can call up and then get their name off the list.
O'BRIEN: That is if you can track them down later.
SERWER: You can get them. They can run...
O'BRIEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) leave your name.
SERWER: ... but they can't hide. That's it.
O'BRIEN: Interesting. Interesting. All right, Andy, thanks very much.
SERWER: You're welcome.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired January 29, 2004 - 07:24 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It took just a hint about the possibility of higher interest rates to cause uneasiness on Wall Street.
Andy Serwer explains why. He's "Minding Your Business" this morning.
Boy, the markets really responded, didn't they?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: They did. They did, Soledad. A rude shock to Wall Street coming from Washington in the form of a prepositional phrase? I mean, it's -- you know, come on. You've got to be a little tougher than that, people on Wall Street. Anyway, I'll explain.
The FOMC, part of the Fed, announcing yesterday they would keep interest rates at a 45-year low, 1 percent. But in the language where it talked about its take on the economy, it dropped a key phrase about leaving interest rates low for a considerable period. You can see there what happened in the markets. Yes, we were down 141 points on the Dow. There is Greenspan.
What that means is the Fed is setting the stage to raise interest rates sooner rather than later. And it's interesting to me, Soledad, will we look back at the winner of '03-'04 as the time when interest rates hit their low for, say, a 10 or 15-year period? It could be.
O'BRIEN: Other news you have: telemarketers, the do-not-call.
SERWER: Yes. We're going to do some whipping of everybody's favorite whipping boy. That's the telemarketing industry here. A ruling is coming out today from the FTC. Telemarketers have to identify themselves on caller IDs. Previously, when a telemarketer called, it usually said, "out of area." Gee, that's a little deceptive, I would think.
Now, telemarketers have to identify themselves or identify the company for whom they are selling services, and they have to put a phone number up that actually works that consumers can call up and then get their name off the list.
O'BRIEN: That is if you can track them down later.
SERWER: You can get them. They can run...
O'BRIEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) leave your name.
SERWER: ... but they can't hide. That's it.
O'BRIEN: Interesting. Interesting. All right, Andy, thanks very much.
SERWER: You're welcome.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
