CNBC's Kelly Evans is joined by Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal and William Lee of Milken Institute to break down what they think will come out of the Federal Reserve's April meeting.
The Federal Reserve painted a dour picture of current conditions and pledged Wednesday to continue its historically aggressive policy stance until it is comfortable that the U.S. economy is back on its feet.
Following this week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the central bank said it would maintain its current interest rate target between 0% and 0.25%.
“The ongoing public health crisis will weigh heavily on economic activity, employment, and inflation in the near term, and poses considerable risks to the economic outlook over the medium term,” the committee said in its post-meeting statement. “The Committee expects to maintain this target range until it is confident that the economy has weathered recent events and is on track to achieve its maximum employment and price stability goals.”
The commitment represents a pledge to hold rates near zero and keep them there until full employment returns and inflation gets back to around the Fed’s long-stated 2% goal.
“We’re going to not be in any hurry to withdraw these measures or to lift off. We’re going to wait until we’re quite confident that the economy is well on the road to recovery,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in a post-meeting news conference.
There was no expression in the statement that the Fed feels confident about what its moves will lead to in terms of economic growth. Instead, the committee said it will continue to monitor conditions “including information related to public health, as well as global developments and muted inflation pressures, and will use its tools and act as appropriate to support the economy.”
There also was no mention of the pace of bond purchases in the future, with Powell only saying they will continue “as needed.” The Fed is engaged in an open-ended program of purchasing Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities. Nor did the statement discuss any of the specific programs the Fed has implemented during the current crisis.
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