The Financial Times , Last updated:August 22, 2012 9:19 pm Further easing ‘warranted soon’, Fed says By Robin Harding in Washington
“Many members judged that additional monetary accommodation would likely be warranted fairly soon unless incoming information pointed to a substantial and sustainable strengthening in the pace of the economic recovery,” say the minutes of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee.
That is an unusually clear statement of the FOMC’s views about future action and sets a tough condition for it to change course and keep policy on hold.
Some better recent data – notably stronger retail sales and the creation of 163,000 jobs in July – had begun to raise doubts about whether the economy might improve enough to stay the Fed’s hand.
Payrolls data for August will be released shortly before the Fed’s September meeting, but even if jobs growth is better, it is unlikely to amount to “a substantial and sustainable strengthening” in the pace of recovery.
In another indication that the FOMC is ready to act, it discussed a range of tools with which to ease monetary policy further,including a possible third round of quantitative easing. Under QE3, the Fed would buy more long-term assets. According to the minutes:“Many participants expected that such a programme could provide additional support for the economic recovery both by putting downward pressure on longer-term interest rates and by contributing to easier financial conditions more broadly.”
In a hint that the Fed might consider an open-ended programme of asset purchases, in which it did not specify the total amount up front, the minutes say that “many” participants thought that any new programme should be “sufficiently flexible to allow adjustments”.
The FOMC considered extending its forecast of low interest rates beyond the current date of “late 2014”. It noted that could be particularly effective if it also stated that rates will remain low even as the recovery progresses.
A couple of participants at the meeting raised the idea of cutting the interest that the Fed pays to banks on their excess reserves or adopting a programme, like that of the Bank of England, to encourage banks to lend to households and businesses.
The Fed minutes came as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office warned of a double-dip recession unless Congress tackles the looming “fiscal cliff” of spending cuts and expiring tax provisions at the end of 2013.
The dollar turned negative while the S&P 500 rebounded from a loss of 0.4 per cent to close modestly higher.
US Treasury yields extended their decline after the FOMC minutes and the yield on 10-year notes had dropped 11 basis points to 1.70 per cent late in New York.
“If you add it all up you see a growing consensus amongst a majority of the FOMC that the US economy is not growing fast enough,” said Steve Wyatt, professor of finance at Miami University.