Jerome Powell

Asset managers may need to reassess the assumption that’s become widely held in recent years: that inflation is dead.

Lenders have been ringing up investment firms and hedge funds to garner interest in financing to companies in industries upended by the coronavirus.

The actions include cutting the federal funds rate to between 0% and 0.25% and other steps to ease economic stress from the spread of the coronavirus.

The world’s pile of negative-yielding debt has grown as the economic backdrop soured and fears of a pandemic mounted.

The Federal Open Market Committee cut the fed funds rate target 50 basis points to a range between 1% and 1.25%, it announced Tuesday.

While the deadly virus threatens to harm the world economy, the funds have remained popular as the Fed signals low rates for the foreseeable future.

The panel has had 13 public meetings since the Massachusetts senator’s last appearance, in May.

Outstanding options riding the world’s most heavily traded government debt product are near the highest level this year.

Markets have been whipsawed by mounting concern over softer economic data and President Trump’s trade wars with major partners.

“The board's record of summarily approving mergers raises doubts about whether it will serve as a meaningful check on this consolidation that creates a new too big to fail bank,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a letter to the Fed.