FOMC
Comments on the Bernanke Press Conference
April 25, 2012
Several useful messages were delivered at the press conference. One of the biggest downside growth risks still facing the United States is the uncertain degree of fiscal drag that will be felt at the start of next year. If Congress legislates no changes in planned austerity from the spending and tax side, the Fed Chairman [...] More
Sterling Declined
April 25, 2012
Britain’s disappointing first-quarter GDP report depressed sterling. Small business sentiment in Japan also underperformed expectations. Speculation persists that the Bank of Japan will ease policy on Friday. Investors await today’s FOMC statement at 16:30 GMT and Fed Chairman Bernanke’s press conference at 18:15 GMT. New Zealand and Australia were closed to day for ANZAC Day, [...] More
FOMC Begins Two-Day Meeting
April 24, 2012
There’s been scant overnight movement in the dollar, which is unchanged against the euro, Swissie and loonie, up 0.1% relative to the yen and kiwi, and off 0.1% versus the yuan and sterling. EUR/USD continues to trade near $1.3150, and the yen has an 81 handle. Stocks in Asia and Europe were more stable than [...] More
FOMC Not Expected to Take New Policy Initiatives at This Time
March 13, 2012
The Federal Open Market Committee will reveal its latest decisions today at 14:15. Note that because the U.S. but not Europe is now on Daylight Savings Time, the time difference between those regions is one hour shorter than usual, that is a sum of four hours with London and five with Brussels and Frankfurt. No [...] More
FOMC Minutes Shed More Light on the Committee’s Diversity of Views
February 15, 2012
The minutes from the January 24-25th Federal Open Market Committee meeting do not appear to contain game-changing information. The range of opinions expressed in a variety of speeches by Federal Reserve officials and admissions at last month’s press conference and in the forecasts released then already had highlighted the fact that committee members are not [...] More
Attention on FOMC and Davos
January 25, 2012
The annual World Economic Forum in Davos opens today with a speech from German Chancellor Merkel. A PSI agreement between Greece and holders of its debt still hasn’t been reached. The FOMC releases its policy statement at 17:30 GMT. This will be followed by forecasts including the interest rate expectations of individual members, and Fed [...] More
FOMC Decision
December 13, 2011
Today’s FOMC statement was as expected and little different in substance from the previous one six weeks ago. No changes were made to Operation Twist, a program to extend the average maturity of the Fed’s security holdings that was unveiled two meetings ago in September and is to run through next June. Further enhanced communication [...] More
FOMC Day
December 13, 2011
The Federal Open Market Committee held its eighth and final regularly scheduled monetary policy meeting of 2011 today and will release its formal statement at about 14:15 Eastern Standard Time (19:15 GMT). This is not one of the meetings to be followed by a Bernanke press conference. That fact and somewhat better-than-expected U.S. economic data [...] More
FOMC Preview
November 2, 2011
The FOMC will release a monetary policy statement at 12:30 EDT (16:30 GMT), and that will be followed by a Bernanke press conference starting at 14:15 EDT (18:15 GMT). The table below gives the market vital signs when previous FOMC statement were released. There’s been some good news since the last statement on September 21st. [...] More
FOMC Statement Highlights and Some Reflections
September 21, 2011
The FOMC released its new monetary policy statement 10-15 minutes later than usual. Dissenting votes from three regional presidents — Plosser, Fisher and Kocherlakota — for the second meeting in a row suggest that the discussion was contentious. Fed officials downgraded their assessment of present economic conditions and, more importantly, escalated the downside growth risks [...] More
