Tag Archive for ‘Federal Reserve’

U.S. Household Balance Sheet Continues to Recover in Q3 2018

The third quarter Federal Reserve Flow of Funds report showed continued improvement in the financial position of U.S. households with real estate, as the market value of all owner-occupied residential real estate (household owned) rose to $25.6 trillion. According to NAHB tabulations of the quarterly series, the asset or market value of owner-occupied real estate held by U.S. households increased… Read More ›

Fed Raises Funds Rate

As expected, at the conclusion of its September meeting the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee raised the short-term federal funds rate 25 basis to a range of 2% to 2.25% . Markets and forecasters are confident that an additional 25 basis point increase will occur in December. The change in monetary policy occurs as the 10-year Treasury rate, which generally moves… Read More ›

Jerome Powell Nominated to Lead the Fed

President Trump has nominated Jerome H. Powell to be the next Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. In his role as Chairman of the Board of Governors (“the Board”), Mr. Powell would also chair the Federal Open Markets Committee (“FOMC”), the monetary policy decision making body composed of the other Federal Reserve Board governors and… Read More ›

Implications Of FOMC Normalization Process For Mortgage Rates

In its statement, the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) left its key interest rate unchanged at a range of 1.0 to 1.25 percent. As signaled in its last statement, the FOMC, beginning in October, will initiate the balance sheet normalization program. The contents of this program are described in the June 2017 Addendum to the Committee’s Policy Normalization Principles and… Read More ›

May Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee – From Idea to Proposal

Beyond confirming that if economic activity continues to unfold as expected another increase in the federal funds rate would be appropriate soon (June), the minutes from the May meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) added relatively little to the picture of the path of monetary policy that was laid out in the post-meeting statement and previous policy discussions…. Read More ›

May Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee – Accentuate the Positive

Economic activity sputtered in the first quarter, job growth stumbled in March, and inflation turned negative at both the headline and core (excluding food and energy) levels. Policymakers on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) “decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 3/4 to 1 percent” and pronounced “Near-term risks to the economic outlook appear… Read More ›

March Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee – A Closer Look

The minutes from meetings of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy setting body, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), traditionally released three weeks after the meeting, provide a closer look at the deliberations, than the brief statement released immediately following the meetings. The minutes from the March meeting provide deeper insights in two particular areas: the path of the federal funds… Read More ›