La Fed no eatá lista para estimular
Genevieve Signoret & Patrick Signoret
La minuta de la última reunión de la Fed (jun 19-20) confirma que el comité de política monetaria (FOMC por sus siglas en inglés) tiene una perspectiva económica más pesimista que antes pero que la mayoría de los miembros todavía no están listos para llevar a cabo medidas adicionales de estímulo (Barclays, NYT, WSJ).
Dean Maki de Barclays no espera que la situación económica se deteriore en los próximos dos meses, por lo que no espera una tercera ronda de relajamiento cuantitativo (QE3) en agosto.
The discussion mainly revolved around participants’ attempting to divine whether recent softness would persist or prove temporary; there is clearly support for further easing if the slowdown is persistent. We do not expect the Fed to ease further at the August meeting; we think that it will monitor the next couple of months of economic data, particularly on the labor market, and implement QE3 if no improvement is seen. We expect some pickup in job growth over the next few months and, thus, do not expect QE3.
(U.S. Instant Insights 11 julio 2012: “June FOMC Minutes: Twist and monitor”).
Federal Reserve officials agreed at a meeting in June that unemployment would remain elevated for another five to six years, but most did not regard that as reason enough to expand the Fed’s efforts to stimulate growth, according to an official account published on Wednesday.
[…] The account of the June meeting suggested that Fed officials now viewed the risk of standing still, so clear in a crisis, as smaller and harder to measure, while the uncertain consequences of action are weighing heavily on their willingness to expand the central bank’s aid campaign.
“A few” of the 12 officials who vote on Fed policy thought further measures, like bond purchases, “likely would be necessary to promote satisfactory growth,” the account said. But several others were willing to consider such steps only if economic conditions deteriorated. This was more than the Fed said after its last meeting in April, but less than many investors were hoping to hear.
[…] The document, a summary rather than a transcript, offered little clarity about the Fed’s next steps, a point underscored by the diversity of conclusions that analysts who follow the central bank quickly drew from the text. Some saw clear evidence that action was imminent; others drew the opposite lesson.
The minutes portray an institution in a state of high alert over the economic outlook. Fed officials expressed worry at the meeting about risks to the American economy stemming from the euro-zone debt crisis, the possibility of a “significant slowdown” in China’s economy and the prospect of deep U.S. government-spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to go into effect at year-end.
[…]The Fed appeared to lay out clearer markers for what could spur further action: “Additional policy action could be warranted if the economic recovery were to lose momentum, if the downside risks to the forecast became sufficiently pronounced, or if inflation seemed likely to run persistently below the Committee’s longer-run objective,” several officials concluded at the meeting, according to the minutes.
[…] The most recent minutes suggest the Fed once again is looking beyond conventional action for ways to support a recovery that has fallen short of its own expectations for growth and job gains.
“Several participants commented that it would be desirable to explore the possibility of developing new tools to promote more accommodative financial conditions and thereby support a stronger economic recovery,” the meeting minutes showed.
One possibility for the Fed would be buying mortgage-backed securities. The Fed bought $1.25 trillion worth of mortgage debt in 2009 and early 2010. Since then, it has focused much of its bond-buying actions in the market for U.S. Treasury securities.
[… ] Some academic research has shown that the Fed’s purchases of mortgage securities are more effective than its Treasury purchases at driving down interest rates that touch consumers and businesses, such as mortgage rates or corporate borrowing rates.