The Committee is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction, and it anticipates doing so until normalization of the level of the federal funds rate is well under way.
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The meeting followed a string of positive readings – particularly on jobs growth and key consumer spending – that has fanned speculation of a tightening in monetary policy despite weakness in most other global economies.
The Fed noted that the US job market has rebounded, with robust hiring in June after a deep slump in May. Relief that the Fed was not more explicit about rates pulled it back to a two-week high on Thursday. Central bank officials were meeting this week for the first time since Britain jostled the markets by voting to pull out of membership in the European Union.
Spillovers to the USA have been limited so far.
USA central bank officials delivered an upbeat statement on the economy Wednesday, saying “near-term risks to the economic outlook have diminished”.
Trade group American Petroleum Institute (API) said Tuesday that USA crude stockpiles fell by 827,000 barrels last week, much less than analysts’ expectations for a drawdown of 2.3 million barrels.
The price of futures contracts tied to the Fed’s benchmark policy rate moves inversely to the rate that traders expect at any given point in time.
In determining the timing and size of future adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, the Committee will assess realized and expected economic conditions relative to its objectives of maximum employment and 2 percent inflation.
The yen JPY= fell about 0.4 percent in early trade to 105.06 per dollar, retreating from Tuesday’s high of 103.995 per dollar.
A few months ago, it was widely assumed that the Fed would have resumed raising rates by now. In the wider markets, Asian stocks edged up on Thursday after the Fed provided an positive assessment of the US economy and lifted risk sentiment.
The closely-watched US monthly employment report will be issued on August 5, followed three weeks later by a speech from Fed Chair Janet Yellen at the annual central banking conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In June, employers added 287,000 jobs, the most since October 2015.
Once the markets stabilized, the Fed signaled a likely rate increase by midyear.
Now, though, the pendulum has swung back, especially after the arrival of a reassuring June jobs report. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 2.60 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,166.58.
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In commodity markets, crude oil extended losses after suffering big hits overnight on renewed concerns about oversupply. What if the US economy continues to pick up steam? Gross domestic product expanded 0.6 percent in the three months to June from the previous quarter, preliminary estimates from the Office for National Statistics showed Wednesday. McBride said, “Waiting too long leaves the Fed with insufficient tools to combat the next economic slowdown or recession”. It has room to accelerate its rate increases if the economy were to heat up so much as to ignite high inflation.
