, Columnist
Fed Comes as Close as It Can to Saying ‘Bubble’
The central bank’s financial stability report used the phrase “meme stocks” and highlighted voracious risk appetite in IPOs and SPACs.
What he meant by “frothy.”
Photographer: Susan Walsh-pool/Getty Images
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The Federal Reserve can’t say “bubble.”
But if it could, it quite possibly would have done so in its semiannual financial stability report released Thursday afternoon, which, in what I can only assume is a first, used the phrase “meme stocks” not once, not twice but three times. The central bank said that it views valuations for some assets as “elevated relative to historical norms even when using measures that account for Treasury yields. In this setting, asset prices may be vulnerable to significant declines should risk appetite fall.”