The U.S. Federal Reserve, which can be considered the world's most influencial central bank, has been really serious about the COVID-19 pandemic going on around the world. For the first time in the history of the Federal Reserve, the central bank has done it twice within a couple of weeks. This time, the key interest rate was cut by 100 basis points, which brought it very close to zero. To be more specific, during the recent urgent FOMC meeting that took place on Sunday, March 15th, the FOMC members almost unanimously decided to cut the interest rated from 1,00-1,25% all the way down to 0,00--,25%.
The current interest rate level is all about going back to the levels of 2008-2015, when the American economy was slowly but surely recovering from the global crisis. However, those interest rate cuts weren't that frequent and rapid back then. Apparently, the recent interest rate decisions were dictated by the pandemic and the total disorder in the global economy. Zero rates are probably going to persist until the economy starts recovering, the markets stabilizes, and the employment restores to were it used to be before it all started.
At the same time, this is not the only thing the Fed had been doing so far to save the national economy from the devastating impact of the coronavirus. On top of those interest rate cuts, the Fed decided to launch a new QE program (QE stands for quantitative easing), which is all about loading up on T-bonds to the mount of 500 billion dollars, and some other dollar securities to the amount of 200 billion dollars.
