© Reuters.
By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged Wednesday, and said “a moderation” in bond purchasing would be warranted on further economic progress.
The Federal Open Market Committee left its benchmark rate unchanged in the range of 0% to 0.25%.
The committee indicated, however, it would begin cutting its $120 billion monthly bond purchases this year.
“If progress continues broadly as expected, the Committee judges that a moderation in the pace of asset purchases may soon be warranted,” the Fed said in a statement.
Fed chair Jerome Powell later signaled the taper could get underway in November, and end in mid-2022. “Participants generally view, so long as the recovery remains on track, a gradual tapering process that concludes around the middle of next year is likely to be appropriate,” Powell said in a press conference that followed the monetary policy statement.
The economic progress has also persuaded some Fed members to bring forward their projections on an interest rate hikes, with members now evenly split on whether to raise rates next year.
Nine Fed officials are now backing a hike in 2022, up from seven in the June meeting.
The Fed hiked its interest-rate outlook in 2023 to 1% from previous projections of 0.6% in June, the Fed’s Summary of Economic Projections showed. The Fed’s projections for 2024, estimate the central bank’s benchmark rate reaching 1.8% by the end of that year.
The start of tapering is set to get underway against a softer economic backdrop, with the latest projections indicating slower growth and higher inflation ahead.
The economy is expected to grow by 5.9% in 2021, down from previous estimates of 7.0%, while the forecast for 3.3% growth in 2022 was raised to 3.8%. For 2023, the Fed sees growth of 2.5%, up from 2.4% previously.
The pace of inflation is forecast to improve to 4.2% in 2021, and 2.2% in 2022, compared with prior estimates of 3.4% and 2.1% respectively. Inflation expectations for 2023 was kept at 2.2%.
The Fed has been laying out the carpet for a tapering announcement for months, after acknowledging the recent economic progress toward its taper threshold of “substantial further progress.”
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last month the pace of the recovery “has exceeded expectations,” and stressed that there was still a way to go to restore the job market to pre-pandemic levels.
On the labor market, the Fed sees the unemployment rate 4.8% in 2021, up from 4.5% previously, while the rate was kept at 3.8% and 3.5% for 2022 and 2023, respectively.
“The Fed gave the promised advance notice today that a reduction in its bond purchases is imminent. This could then be decided as soon as at the November meeting,” Commerzbank (DE:CBKG) said in a note.
Source: Investing.com
