The Federal Reserve has committed to beefing up its asset purchases until “substantial further progress” is made on the economic rebound. But Fed officials this week are sending mixed messages on whether or not the next move will be ramping up or winding down its quantitative easing program.
Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said Monday that the central bank will likely maintain its $120-billion-a-month pace of buying mortgage-backed securities and U.S. Treasuries “for a while.”
But Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic told Reuters Monday that he is “hopeful that in fairly short order we can start to recalibrate” quantitative easing, suggesting that the central bank could begin tapering its purchases — as soon as this year.
Since the beginning of the crisis, the Fed has relied heavily on its asset purchases to handle the COVID-19 crisis, first to alleviate turmoil in financial markets and later to actively stimulate an economy in recovery.
The Fed’s balance sheet blew past the $7 trillion mark this year and ended 2020 at $7.4 trillion.
The central bank’s latest guidance, from its December policy-setting meeting, was that the Fed would continue to buy at least $120 billion a month until the Fed felt it had made enough progress toward maximum employment and inflation moderately above its 2% target.
“Anytime we feel like the economy could use stronger accommodation, we would be prepared to provide it,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said on Dec. 16.
Powell said the Fed could target longer-dated purchases (such as 10-year or 30-year U.S. Treasuries) to further ease conditions, but did not suggest that policymakers were seriously considering such a move at the time.
Expand or taper?
Bostic’s remarks suggest that the next move may not be stronger accommodation but a pullback in that support.
“I am hopeful that moving on into this year that the signals for weakness start to dissipate and the conversation turns consistently and robustly to sort of steady and broad-based growth,” Bostic told Reuters.
Remarks from Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester also hint that the Fed has a high bar for dramatically scaling up its quantitative easing program, even in the face of rising COVID-19 cases across the country.
“A slowdown in the economy in the first part of the year along the lines I am expecting would not require a change in monetary policy so long as the medium-run outlook remains intact,” Mester said Monday.
Fed officials have linked their policy decisions to wherever the economy heads from here. Although the vaccine rollout offers hope for an imminent recovery, it could take months to achieve widespread inoculation — during which spiking case counts may force further shutdowns.
Fed officials have warned that the first half of 2021 will be difficult, but offered optimism over a strong economic rebound in the second half of the year.
“Progress on the vaccine front has been very positive, and it looks like the health crisis will be brought under control as we move through the year,” said Evans.
The Fed’s next scheduled policy-setting meeting will take place Jan. 26 and 27.
Brian Cheung is a reporter covering the Fed, economics, and banking for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter @bcheungz.
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