Federal Reserve State of Play - By Steve Beckner - 23 June'09
The Federal Reserve's policymaking Federal Open Market Committee
has convened its two-day, mid-year meeting Tuesday. A chief task of the
FOMC is to construct a fresh economic forecast in preparation for
Chairman Ben Bernanke's mid-year Monetary Policy Report to Congress next
month. A recent Fed survey found signs of improvement in the economy,
but not likely enough for the FOMC to retreat from its unprecedented
efforts to stimulate growth through credit easing.
The Fed has held the federal funds rate near zero since December
and is in the process of buying up to $1.75 trillion in Treasury and
other bonds in an effort to hold down longer term rates, including up to
$300 billion in Treasuries. It will be considering whether to expand or
extend those purchases.
In morning trading before the meeting, the yield on the 10-year
Treasury note was trading at 3.64%. That's down roughly 36 basis points
from its recent peak a couple of weeks ago. Also spreads between
Treasury yields and mortgage rates have narrowed. So the pressure would
seem to be off of the FOMC to increase its purchases of Treasury or
other longer term securities, if that was ever really in the cards. The
issue will no doubt be addressed in Wednesday afternoon's policy
announcement, but the Fed seems likely to leave its asset purchase
program essentially alone, while giving itself flexibility to make
future adjustments.
Not to be forgotten is that the Fed's Term Asset-Backed Securities
Loan Facility (TALF), which is already financing purchases of an array
of asset backed securities (ABS) backed by consumer and small business
loans, is gearing up to finance sizable purchases of commercial mortgage
backed securities (CMBS).
The FOMC is also expected to have an extensive discussion of "exit
strategies" -- how the Fed will eventually withdraw all the money it has
pumped into the system to contain inflation. An intriguing possibility
which some officials have suggested is that, by using its power to pay
interest on reserves to put a floor under the federal funds rate, the
Fed could at some point decide to continue running an expansive
quantitative policy while starting to nudge up the funds rate.
However, there is no realistic likelihood that the Fed will begin
implementing any type of exit strategy anytime soon. Even more hawkish
Fed policymakers have indicated that they think monetary policy needs to
remain accommodative until probably next year some time. And so the FOMC
is likely to reiterate its intention, as in the April 29 statement, to
"employ all available tools to promote economic recovery," to keep
the funds rate target in the 0% to 0.25% range and to keep that rate
"exceptionally low ... for an extended period."