No, TED isn't someone you should know, but it is something you should know about. TED is sort of like a finanial barometer of money flow. If the TED Spread is increasing, money flow is slowing down. If decreasing, then it is speeding up.
Why is this important to know? The current crisis we're in has as much to do with banks not lending each other money, and therefore not lending it to you and I, as anything. If money is tremendously tight (i.e., the TED Spread is very large) that's a bad thing. So, watching the trend of the TED Spread against an historical average will give you an idea if the government bailout plan is working.
I don't want to get too technical here (see Wikipedia definition for more info), but the TED Spread is the difference between the Treasury Bill rate and the rate for Eurodollar bills. A large TED Spread is bad, a small TED Spread is good. We'll leave it at that for now.
Historically, the long term TED Spread runs around .3%, that's 3/10ths of one percent! As of the time this article was written, it was at 4.57%, indicating that money is very, very, very tight. A month ago, it was in the 2.5% range, so you can see that it has bumped up significantly in a relatively short period of time.
So, what does this mean for you? Keep an eye on what the TED Spread is doing. If it starts falling significantly, then you'll know Congress'es $700 Billion plan is working. If it goes significantly higher, watch out!
Just google "TED Spread" if you want to see today's number. There are numerous reporting web sites to choose from.
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