“Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is putting investors on notice that the central bank is prepared to begin phasing out one of the most aggressive easing programs in its century-long history later this year,” Craig Torres and Jeff Kearns wrote for Bloomberg late last week. The writing team continued, “The Fed will probably taper its $85 billion in monthly bond buying later in 2013 and halt purchases around mid-2014 as long as the world’s largest economy performs in line with Fed projections, Bernanke told reporters yesterday in Washington after a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. ‘The vast, highly unprecedented, highly accommodative monetary policy stance that’s been so supportive of the recovery has begun to turn,’ said Michael Gapen, senior U.S. economist for Barclays Plc in New York and a former economist in the Fed’s Division of Monetary Affairs. “The markets for the next several years or more will have to deal with the withdrawal of that support.’ Stocks and Treasuries tumbled at the prospect of a wind-down in bond buying that’s swollen the Fed balance sheet to a record $3.41 trillion in an attack against the worst joblessness since the Great Depression. While citing waning risks to the economy, Bernanke said curbs to bond buying hinge on gains in the labor market and a pickup in growth.” Read the full article here. | Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS
Subscribe to: Post Comments (RSS2)