Fed minutes show officials unsure on need for rate hikes in 2019
Economist says officials are clearly in risk management mode
Washington — Federal Reserve officials widely favoured ending the runoff of the central bank’s balance sheet this year while expressing uncertainty over whether they would raise interest rates again in 2019, minutes of their January meeting show. “Almost all participants thought that it would be desirable to announce before too long a plan to stop reducing the Federal Reserve’s asset holdings later this year,” according to the record of the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC's) January 29-30 gathering released Wednesday. “Such an announcement would provide more certainty about the process for completing the normalisation of the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet,” the minutes said, referring to the rolloff of assets from the balance sheet that began in late 2017. Launched as an emergency measure to protect the economy during the financial crisis, it has declined to about $4-trillion from a peak of $4.5-trillion in 2015.
“They will have a permanently gigantic balanc...
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