https://www.federalreserve.gov/mediacenter/files/FOMCpresconf20181219.pdf
HEATHER LONG. Hi, Heather Long from the Washington Post. Today, the Fed lowered its expectations for interest rate increases. Given that, I’m wondering if the Fed has had any discussion of altering the course of balance sheet normalization and if you could give us any insight on what might lead the FOMC to alter that balance sheet normalization in 2019.
CHAIRMAN POWELL. Sure. If you go back some years, I think we—people who were working at the Fed in 2013 and ’14 took away the lesson that the markets could be very sensitive to news about the size of the balance sheet, the pace of asset purchases, the pace of runoff, and things like that. So we thought carefully about this, on how to normalize policy, and came to the view that we would effectively have the balance sheet runoff on automatic pilot and use monetary policy, rate policy, to adjust to incoming data.
And I think that has been a good decision. I think that the runoff of the balance sheet has been smooth and has served its purpose. And I don’t see us changing that.
HEATHER LONG. Hi, Heather Long from the Washington Post. Today, the Fed lowered its expectations for interest rate increases. Given that, I’m wondering if the Fed has had any discussion of altering the course of balance sheet normalization and if you could give us any insight on what might lead the FOMC to alter that balance sheet normalization in 2019.
CHAIRMAN POWELL. Sure. If you go back some years, I think we—people who were working at the Fed in 2013 and ’14 took away the lesson that the markets could be very sensitive to news about the size of the balance sheet, the pace of asset purchases, the pace of runoff, and things like that. So we thought carefully about this, on how to normalize policy, and came to the view that we would effectively have the balance sheet runoff on automatic pilot and use monetary policy, rate policy, to adjust to incoming data.
And I think that has been a good decision. I think that the runoff of the balance sheet has been smooth and has served its purpose. And I don’t see us changing that.