Fed considered more asset purchases

Bloomberg reports that FOMC members considered additional asset purchases at last month's policy meeting, but unanimously decided not to announce any further action.

Some Federal Reserve officials judged last month that the central bank may need to boost its purchases of assets to secure a stronger economic recovery, while all policy makers agreed to hold off on such a move at the time.

“Some members noted that a further increase in the total amount of purchases might well be warranted at some point to spur a more rapid pace of recovery,” minutes of the April 28-29 Federal Open Market Committee meeting showed today in Washington. “All members concurred with waiting to see how the economy and financial conditions respond to the policy actions already in train” before making a decision.

Three weeks later, that looks to be the right call, but who knows what things will look like when the FOMC next meets in just over a month. As for the longer term, there are likely to be plenty more purchase announcements to come, an increasing number of them for Treasuries.