Recession is easing: Fed

WASHINGTON - THE Federal Reserve on Wednesday said the recession is easing, but that the economy likely will remain weak and keep a lid on inflation.

Against this backdrop, the Fed held a key bank lending rate at a record low of between zero and 0.25 per cent, and pledged again to keep it there for 'an extended period' to help brace activity going forward.

Even though energy and other commodity prices have risen recently, the Fed said inflation will remain 'subdued for some time.'

This new language sought to ease Wall Street's concerns the Fed's aggressive actions to revive the economy will spur inflation later on.

The Fed also decided to stay the course on existing programs intended to drive down rates on mortgages and other consumer debt.

Instead, the central bank again kept the door wide open to making changes if economic conditions warrant.

The Fed in March launched a US$1.2 trillion (S$1.8 trillion) effort to drive down interest rates to try to revive lending and get Americans to spend more freely again.

It said it would spend up to US$300 billion to buy long-term government bonds over six months and boost its purchases of mortgage securities.

So far, the Fed has bought about US$177.5 billion in Treasury bonds.

The Fed is on track to buy up to US$1.25 trillion worth of securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the end of this year or early next year. Nearly US$456 billion worth of those securities have been purchased. -- AP

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm an accountant, I hate my job, but seriously, I wouldn’t know what else to do

I was born to be a lot of things, but being an accountant isn't one of them. In my heart of hearts I have always known this, but for some stupid subconscious reason, I have always ignored it. Why? Well...um...err...I didn’t know what else to do. How many people faced with the same predicament of deciding on a profession upon graduating used “not really knowing what to do” as their guiding compass? Blink. Ten years have passed and you’re left wondering, how did I get here? In this cubicle? Doing something I cannot stand (and I’m not even honestly good at), with people I quite frankly don’t really care about? For me that was accounting, a profession that conjures numerous clichés, such as boring, bean counting, personality not needed, number crunching etc etc. These have now evolved and have been replaced by repetition, reconciliations, long hours, fudging figures, high turnover, Enron and even more reconciliations. R-E-S-P-E-C-T But please don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respe...
Read more

Three money managers who lived through the 1987 stock-market crash warn of danger today

Image
By  Philip van Doorn Published: Oct 31, 2017 1:49 p.m. ET SHARE   ‘I would take some money off now because ... there are clear signs of deranged valuations,’ says Gabelli fund manager Lawrence Haverty Getty Images A trader on the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 19, 1987 — Black Monday. When the stock market crashed on Oct. 19, 1987, investors panicked. It was an unfamiliar event — the previous decline of a similar magnitude occurred 58 years earlier, in 1929. Now, 30 years after Black Monday in 1987, there are professional investors still at work who lived through that fateful day. In interviews, three of them talked about their experiences, offered insights into warning signs and gave advice on how to handle major downturns. They are: •  Lewis Altfest , president of Altfest Personal Wealth Management, which manages about $1.3 billion for private clients. Altfest founded the firm in 1983 after working as a general partner and director of research at Lord, A...
Read more

Have We Reached a Top?

By James Kostohryz It's never been my position that the flow of fundamental news would turn from positive to negative overnight and in a total fashion. The world simply doesn't work that way. When I terminated my core long position a couple of weeks ago for reasons explained in�Ten Reasons the Countertrend Rally May Be Over,�I outlined a series of factors I believe may manifest in the later half of 2009 and the first half of 2010. Indeed, most of these factors will be more back-end loaded, as negative factors tend to build on one another and gain momentum in time through the medium of psychology and social mood. It's my view that the flow of economically relevant events�-- and perceptions of these events --are in the early stages of a transition. In this case, a transition means the flow of relatively good news will tend to wane somewhat while there's an uptick in relatively bad news. This is what one would expect at a top. However, it's to be expected that during t...
Read more