por admin » Mié Ago 21, 2013 2:07 pm
Las minutas del Fed no dieron mayor luz de como ni cuando el banco central podra reducir sus compras de $85 billones de bonos mensuales.
Los miembros se mostraron divididos acerca de cuando es el mejor momento para empezar a ajustar. Los miembros se mostraron inseguros acerca de la economia, en general estan mas pesimistas que el anio pasado. En ese entonces afirmaban que el crecimiento se aceleraria en el segundo semestre de este anio y el proximo, ahora no se muestran tan optimistas.
Los miembros senialaron que las seniales de la economia son mixtas. El target de inflacion del Fed es 2% y ahora solo estamos viendo el 1%.
ECONOMY
Updated August 21, 2013, 2:23 p.m. ET
Fed Views Mixed on Bond Buying
July Minutes Show Officials Divided on When to Reduce Purchases
By
VICTORIA MCGRANEAnd
JEFFREY SPARSHOTTCONNECTMinutes from the Federal Reserve's July policy meeting provided no clear signal on when the central bank will start scaling back its $85 billion bond-buying program.
The minutes from the July 30-31 meeting show officials divided about the appropriate timing of the first reduction in bond purchases, with "a few" officials with votes on policy looking to move soon and "a few" urging more caution. The minutes were released Wednesday after the customary three-week lag.
Overall, the minutes give the impression of a committee tentative about drawing conclusions from the incoming economic data. Officials also appeared slightly more pessimistic about the economic outlook than they had earlier in the year.
Officials generally thought growth would pick up "somewhat" in the second half of the year and strengthen further in 2014, the minutes said. "A number of participants indicated, however, that they were somewhat less confident about a near-term pickup in economic growth than they had been in June."
Fed officials also described recent economic data as "mixed."
Such assessments are important because the Fed has said its decision on reducing its bond purchases hinges on the economic data. After the Fed's June policy meeting, Chairman Ben Bernanke said that if the economy continues to improve as the Fed expects, the central bank could make the first reduction in its bond purchases later this year. If the economy continued to meet the Fed's expectations, reductions would continue and the program would wrap up by mid-2014, Mr. Bernanke said.
The minutes show officials offering a range of views on the degree of improvement in the jobs market and how likely inflation, which has been running close to 1%, would soon return to the Fed's 2% target.
The minutes suggest that as of July a consensus had still not formed around the timing of the first cut to the bond program.
One voting member argued that the labor market had improved enough for the Fed to put language in its formal policy statement saying the bond-buying program would be cut "in the near future." While the minutes do not identify officials by name, they note that the member who said this dissented from the July policy statement. Kansas City Fed President Esther George was the only official to do so in July.
While all 19 Fed officials participate in the policy meetings, only 12 of them vote.
"A few members emphasized the importance of being patient and evaluating additional information on the economy before deciding on any changes to the pace of asset purchases," the minutes said.
"At the same time, a few others pointed to the contingent plan that had been articulated on behalf of the Committee the previous month, and suggested that it might soon be time to slow somewhat the pace of purchases as outlined in that plan," the minutes continued.
Fed officials discussed tweaking the language of their policy statement to emphasize the data-dependent nature of their decision on the bond program, but ultimately decided that doing so might only further confuse markets, rather than clarify the Fed's thinking.
The minutes also show that the Fed is actively considering changing its so-called forward guidance, or the hints given in the policy statement about the likely future course of policy. The Fed has said that it intends to keep short-term interest rates near zero at least until the jobless rate drops to 6.5%, unless inflation looks likely to rise to 2.5% a year.
In general, officials at the July meeting thought it best to stick with the current thresholds for now, but "several" were willing to consider lowering the 6.5% employment threshold in the future. Some officials, however, worried that changing the threshold could undermine the credibility and therefore the effectiveness of forward guidance since market participants might conclude the Fed could move it up as well.