Interest Rate Analysis: Rapid Fire

What this video covers

• Why interest-rate futures prices move opposite interest rates, and how that inverse relationship translates directly to bullish (long) or bearish (short) positions
• How to read a normal (positive), inverted (negative), and flat yield curve, including which rate sits higher on each slope and what economic signal each shape sends
• The three Federal Reserve (the Fed) monetary policy tools: open market operations, the discount rate, and reserve requirements, plus whether each action tightens or eases
• Why buying securities is easing (not tightening) and how selling securities drains money from the system to push rates upward
• The exact definition of the discount rate in monetary policy context: the rate the Fed charges banks that borrow from it, not a time-value-of-money required rate of return
• The indirect path of fiscal policy through government borrowing and deficit spending, contrasted with the Fed's direct action on short-term rates
• How to spot and avoid the four classic exam traps: flipping the inverted curve, confusing tightening with easing, conflating the two discount rates, and mistaking fiscal policy for direct rate control