FOMC
Vital Market Signs When the FOMC Met Previously
March 16, 2010
Monetary policymakers at the Federal Reserve have a dual mandate to promote stable, low inflation and to maximize employment. As a result, the Fed pays more attention than most central banks to the unemployment rate. The FOMC is not expected to modify the belief of officials that present economic conditions including a soft labor market [...] More
Waiting for Results of FOMC and Ecofin Meetings
March 16, 2010
The dollar is down 0.3% against the kiwi and sterling, 0.2% against the Canadian and Swiss currencies, and off 0.1% against the euro and Aussie dollar. It firmed 0.1% against the yen, EU Finance ministers (Ecofin) have reportedly agreed in principle on some technical details for pooling funds that will be given directly to Greece [...] More
FOMC’s Six-Month Rule: Some Background
March 15, 2010
The Federal Open Market Committee will release a new policy statement at around 18:15 GMT on Tuesday. Analysts are not expecting significant changes, and the state of finance reform legislation in the senate, which would affect the Fed in profound ways, has diverted the press attention this week from the policy meeting. That this is [...] More
Next Week
February 12, 2010
Next week starts off with a bunch of holidays: Presidents Day in the U.S. on Monday, Family Day for Canada on Monday, Mardi Gras in Brazil on Monday-Tuesday, and the Lunar New Year in China all week. EU finance ministers, known as Ecofin, meet in Brussels on Tuesday to try and secure a plan for [...] More
A Less Dovish FOMC Statement
January 27, 2010
The FOMC statement was less dovish than earlier ones in several respects. Less confidence was expressed that inflation would remain subdued. The committee now says substantial resource slack is continuing to restrain cost pressures and that inflation is likely to be subdued for some time; before it had said substantial resource slack is likely to continue [...] More
FOMC Preview
January 27, 2010
More anxiety exists now about the sustainability of the global and U.S. economic recoveries than when the FOMC met previously on December 16, so this is not the time to tinker with the basic thrust of monetary policy, which was summarized in the first sentence of the third paragraph of the last statement: The Committee will [...] More
Vital Market Prices at the Time of Prior FOMC Meetings
December 16, 2009
The FOMC is not expected to change its Fed funds target, nor is the conditional guidance that “exceptionally low rates for and extended period” likely to get modified further. The last statement of November 4 made news by imposing three conditions to that pledge: low resource utilization (which can be determined from the jobless rate [...] More
Press Coverage of FOMC Minutes
May 22, 2008
The Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and New York Times found essentially the same message in minutes from the April 30th meeting. The operative mode of policymaking these days is balancing conflicting priorities, and that translates into a freeze on the present policy for quite sime time. The balancing act has two dimensions, first between [...] More
Reflections on FOMC Minutes
May 21, 2008
I take away three main thoughts, none of which is surprising. First, the outlook for growth is dim and worse than such seemed in January. Projected 2008 growth was revised down to 0.3-1.2% from 1.2-2.0%, strongly suggesting some negative quarters given on-year growth of 2.5% in 1Q08. But inflation prospects have worsened. Officials project PCE inflation [...] More
