Comments in the minutes of the March 15 meeting
- In Treasury market: Market participants reported an acute decline in market liquidity
- A number of primary dealers found it especially difficult to make markets in off-the-run Treasury securities and reported that this segment of the market had ceased to function effectively
- All participants viewed the near-term U.S. economic outlook as having deteriorated sharply in recent weeks and as having become profoundly uncertain
- Full text
"The staff provided two plausible economic scenarios that spanned a range of possibilities. Importantly, the future performance of the economy would depend on the evolution of the virus outbreak and the measures undertaken to contain it. In one scenario, economic activity started to rebound in the second half of this year. In a more adverse scenario, the economy entered recession this year, with a recovery much slower to take hold and not materially under way until next year."
This is nothing new but worth repeating:
With regard to monetary policy beyond this meeting, these participants judged that it would be appropriate to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent until policymakers were confident that the economy had weathered recent events and was on track to achieve the Committee's maximum employment and price stability goals.
