Brian Chappatta, Columnist

The Fed Proves It Will Do Whatever It Takes in Repo

The central bank didn’t waste time in reacting to signs of a cash crunch this time.

March 11, 2020 at 9:50 PM UTC

Brian Chappatta is managing editor of Bloomberg News' leveraged finance and distressed debt teams. He was previously managing editor and team leader of its wealth group. Before that he was a Bloomberg Opinion markets and finance columnist and a bonds reporter for Bloomberg News.

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Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

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The phrase “whatever it takes” is something of a buzzword lately when discussing how to deal with the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on the global economy.

Echoing a phrase famously used in 2012 by Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank at the time, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak have repeated that pledge in recent days. Even U.S. President Donald Trump, confronted with stocks on the precipice of a bear market, took to Twitter to say he’s “fully prepared to use the full power of the Federal Government.”