Minutes of the March 19-20 FOMC meeting:
- A number of FOMC participants saw QE tapering around midyear
- FOMC saw overall outlook ‘little changed’ from prior meeting
- Full text of the FOMC minutes
- Participants ‘remained concerned’ about market stability
- Most participants felt risks and cost of more asset purchases remained manageable but merited close attention
- Participants agreed ongoing assessment of QE benefits and costs was needed
- Many participants reported that their business contacts were seeing some further improvement in the economic outlook
- Many FOMC participants felt continued solid improvement in labor market outlook could lead to slowing purchases at some point over next several meetings
Remember that the meeting was two weeks before the most-recent non-farm payrolls report and that the “continued solid improvement in labor market outlook” has been thrown into doubt. As a result, the market is less worried that purchases will be tapered around mid-year, if at all.
