El Fed dirá que resultado ha tenido la compra de $40 billones al mes. No se espera que hagan nada nuevo.
What to Expect From Fed Meeting
By Kristina Peterson And Michael S. Derby
Today’s Federal Reserve statement is likely to be a low-key check-up on the U.S. economy, following last month’s prescription of more stimulus.
Bloomberg News
The Federal Reserve building in Washington.
Fed officials’ to-do list includes assessing the effects of their decision in September to start buying $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities each month until the labor market rebounds. They will take the economy’s temperature. And they likely will discuss — but not resolve — differences over how to better communicate with the public about where interest rates are headed.
They aren’t expected to launch any new policies just two weeks before the U.S. elections. Rather, policy makers likely will agree to continue the bond purchases and another program, called Operation Twist, in which the central bank has been buying $45 billion in long-term Treasury bonds every month and funding the purchases with proceeds from sales of short-term Treasurys. Both programs aim to lower long-term interest rates to spur spending, investment and hiring.
Recent economic reports suggest the sluggish U.S. recovery is perking up a bit, but not enough to cause the Fed to change course. Retail sales rose in September, unemployment fell to 7.8% that month and home sales are climbing.
For more than a year, Fed officials have debated adjusting their communications approach, but remain too divided to agree to a new one soon.
Since the Fed cut short-term interest rates to nearly zero in late 2008, it has provided guidance on when it expects to start raising rates again. In September, the Fed said it expects to keep rates very low until at least mid-2015 and keep them low even as the recovery gains strength.
Many Fed officials, however, dislike using a date as a guidepost for policy because they don’t want to imply they are bound to it regardless of what happens in the economy. Minutes of the September meeting showed officials supported spelling out more directly what economic conditions would prompt them to raise rates. They disagree, however, on which data points to rely on and what levels should trigger Fed action.