Wikinvest Wire

No change at the Fed

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

While little will be known until sometime next month about what was actually discussed over the last two days at the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the actual changes to the policy statement released at the conclusion of the meeting look as though they could have been completed in about ten minutes.

That's a nice touch there, about two-thirds of the way down, where they replace this:

The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and anticipates that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.
With this:
The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.
Do you think there was any debate on that particular change?

The April and June statements are shown side-by-side below.
IMAGE Actually, there appears to be another instance of a similar change in wording, so maybe there was some debate about the use of the phrase "continues to" and "further" - which was more appropriate to describe the outlook for interest rates and which was better suited to development in household spending.

From April:
Household spending has shown signs of stabilizing
From June:
Household spending has shown further signs of stabilizing

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