The Fed just made it’s announcement following today’s FOMC meeting. All FOMC members except for Thomas Hoenig voted to leave the overnight bank-to-bank Fed Funds Rate the same at 0.25%. There was no reference to the Fed-to-bank Discount Rate, which is currently at 0.75% following a surprise 0.25% hike last month. As usual, the press
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The Fed held the overnight bank-to-bank Fed Funds Rate at a range of 0-0.25% and more definitively announced that they expect to wind down their mortgage bond purchases by March 31. They still said they will make a final decision on MBS buys according to market conditions, but they did say they’d wind down purchases
Below are our excerpts of key elements from Fed minutes from their last FOMC meeting on December 15-16. The excerpts cover the following: Fed’s view on whether economic recovery will last, support for tame inflation even with volatile energy prices, bank standards to remain tight because of commercial real estate strains, and jobless rate likely
The Fed kept the overnight bank-to-bank Fed Funds Rate target at 0-.25% and Fed-to-bank Discount Rate at .5%. They changed their language ever so slightly about the economy from “likely to remain weak for some time” to “likely to remain weak for a time” and following that by saying they expect fiscal and monetary stimulus
I am very excited, because last night I received news that I had won $5 million in the Netherlands lotto! Unfortunately I will receive $5 a year for a million years… Seriously, not a day goes by that I don’t receive some e-mail like, “Wherein your email address emerged as one of the online Winning
The big news from today’s Fed meeting isn’t that they’re keeping overnight Fed Funds Rate the same at 0-.25% but that the mortgage bond purchase program is being extended through the first quarter of 2010. Same $1.25t target amount of purchases, but the extension gives markets more time to get used to less Fed help
Today’s FOMC announcement is below. The highlights are that they reiterated they’ll stop Treasury buying in the Fall to wean markets off this support but continue mortgage bond buying until they hit their budget of $1.25t by end of year–we cover this topic weekly, see ‘Fed Mortgage Bond Program’ articles. FULL FED FOMC ANNOUNCEMENT Information
Below is the full text of the Fed’s FOMC decision from their two-day meeting that just ended. They kept short-term Discount and Fed Funds rates the same and said that ‘inflation will remain subdued for some time’ but this is a slight change from the April statement that said ‘sees some risk that inflation could
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in March indicates that the economy has continued to contract, though the pace of contraction appears to be somewhat slower. Household spending has shown signs of stabilizing but remains constrained by ongoing job losses, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Weak sales prospects and difficulties in
Full Fed statement below following today’s FOMC meeting. They’ve more than doubled their mortgage bond buying program to drive rates down. Rates trading lower on the news. FULL FED FOMC STATEMENT: Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January indicates that the economy continues to contract. Job losses, declining equity and housing
The FOMC said that they will keep buying mortgage bonds according to their $500b by June schedule and also said they will keep going if necessary. They left rates alone. Mortgage bonds sold off heavily after the Fed meeting, ostensibly because they also said they’d buy long-term Treasuries as well, which contribute to already diluted
Below is the full statement from the Federal Open Market Committee from their final meeting of 2008. They cut the overnight bank-to-bank Fed Funds Rate to a target range of 0 to .25% and cut the Fed-to-bank Discount Rate to 0.5%. They also reiterated their commitment to purchase up to $500b in mortgage bonds in
The Federal Open Market Committee today cut the bank-to-bank Fed Funds Rate 50bps to 1% and the Fed-to-bank Discount Rate 50bps to 1.25%, citing a marked decline in consumer expenditures. These cuts to short term rate are aimed at getting short-term business-to-business lending back on track, which then feeds down to the consumer. Since most
By holding the bank-to-bank Fed Funds Rate at 2% and the Fed-to-bank Discount rate at 2.25% at their FOMC meeting today, the Fed proved that the financial storm that’s been blowing since August 2007 requires much more than rate cuts. It’s not so much about the price of money right now, but rather the availability
Following their meeting today, the Federal Open Market Committee kept the bank-to-bank Fed Funds Rate at 2% and the Fed-to-bank Discount Rate at 2.25%, and said that “The Committee expects inflation to moderate later this year and next year, but the inflation outlook remains highly uncertain.” This is following their June 25 statement where they