Nothing to see here. Move along.
In the minutes from its March 16-17 meeting, released today April 7, Federal Reserve officials told the financial markets “that it would likely be some time until substantial further progress toward the [Open Market] Committee’s maximum-employment and price-stability goals would be realized.”
And, the minutes went on, “a number of participants highlighted the importance of the Committee clearly communicating its assessment of progress toward its longer-run goals well in advance of the time when it could be judged substantial enough to warrant a change in the pace of asset purchases.”
In other words, we’ll tell you (the financial markets) well in advance when we are thinking about scaling back the current $120 billion in purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed assets. The consensus is that the central bank won’t move to raise benchmark interest rates, now at 0% to 0.25%, until after it ends its monthly bond purchase program. At the meeting participants forecast they would keep the benchmark interest rate near zero until at least 2023.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose 1 basis point to 1.67% today.
