Key rate stays as is, Fed decides
It’ll start thinning its bond stockpile
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve left its benchmark interest rate unchanged and said Wednesday that it would begin to withdraw some of the trillions of dollars that it invested in the U.S. economy after the 2008 financial crisis.
The widely expected announcement reflected the Fed’s confidence in continued economic growth. The current expansion is now in its ninth year, one of the longest periods of growth in U.S. history.
The Fed noted the impact of three recent hurricanes, including one that was striking Puerto Rico on Wednesday, but said the storms would weigh on the economy only briefly.
“Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria have devastated many communities, inflicting severe hardship,” the Fed said in a statement after a two-day meeting of its policy committee. “Storm-related disruptions and rebuilding will affect economic activity in the near term, but past experience suggests that the storms are unlikely to
materially alter the course of the national economy over the medium term.”
The Fed did not raise its benchmark interest rate, which now sits in a range between 1 percent and 1.25 percent, but most Fed officials predicted in a new round of economic forecasts that the Fed would increase rates later this year. Twelve of the 16 officials on the Federal Open Market Committee predicted an increase, the same number as in June.
In its statement, the Fed pointed to the strength of job growth and to increases in household and business spending. It noted that inflation has weakened in recent months, but predicted a rebound.
“We think the recovery is on a strong track. The reason for our actions today … is we think the economy is performing well,” Federal Reserve Board Chairman Janet Yellen said Wednesday.
The official optimism went only so far, however. The pace of growth remains weak by historical standards, and the Fed indicated that it sees no evidence of a turn toward stronger growth.
Officials once again reduced their expectations for future rate increases. The median prediction is now that the benchmark rate will stabilize at 2.8 percent, down from a median estimate of 3 percent in June.
Fed officials also expect both low unemployment and low inflation to persist over the next several years, a curious combination that economists are struggling to understand.
Fed officials predicted that inflation would rebound modestly next year, approaching the Fed’s target of a 2 percent annual pace. But they predicted that inflation would not rise above that 2 percent target even though they expect unemployment to remain well below the level that would usually result in inflation.
Officials predicted unemployment will stay near 4 percent for the next three years.
The Fed must decide how soon to resume raising interest rates. The central bank has raised its benchmark rate twice this year, in March and June, and markets were expecting at least one more increase this year. The current rate of between 1 percent and 1.25 percent is a level most Fed officials regard as providing modest encouragement for increased borrowing and risk-taking.
Some economic indicators suggest higher rates are warranted: The unemployment rate, at 4.4 percent in August, is below the level most officials regard as sustainable, which the Fed historically has treated as a signal for higher rates.
But other economic measures paint a contrasting picture of economic health. While job growth remains strong, wage growth is modest and inflation weakened in recent months.
The Fed’s preferred measure of prices increased by just 1.4 percent during the 12 months ending in July, the most recent available data. The Fed is likely to undershoot its target of 2 percent annual inflation for the sixth consecutive year. That has caused consternation among some economists and Fed officials, who are wary of raising rates given the Fed’s inability to so far achieve its inflation objectives.
At a news conference Wednesday, Yellen said the Fed still believes that persistently low inflation is temporary. Yellen said several factors have held inflation down: a job market still healing from the recession, lower energy prices and a strong dollar, which has reduced the costs of imports.
She said the Fed would adjust its policymaking if it thought the causes of low inflation had become permanent.
The Fed’s next meeting is Oct. 31-Nov. 1, but the Fed is unlikely to raise rates any sooner than its final meeting of the year, in mid-December.
The Fed’s plan to shrink its $4 trillion portfolio has been well choreographed for months, with the central bank outlining in June its plans to slowly reduce its balance sheet by decreasing reinvestment of the principal payments it receives on its bond holdings. To avoid surprising markets or injecting volatility, the Fed plans to gradually reduce its holdings by $10 billion a month.
The central bank, which began its bond-buying program to drive down borrowing costs in the wake of the financial crisis, is now convinced that the economy is strong enough to operate without that level of government support.
The retreat will put modest upward pressure on borrowing costs, but businesses and consumers are unlikely to see much difference in the near term.
“You will see a gradual tightening of financial conditions that will come from the Fed shrinking its balance sheet,” said Lewis Alexander, chief U.S. economist at Nomura Securities.
Still, questions remain, both about how markets react and where the Fed will decide where to stop. Before the crisis, the Fed held less than $900 billion in assets, and most analysts expect the Fed to maintain a significantly larger balance sheet going forward — both because the financial system has grown and because the Fed has expanded its role in maintaining the system.