Econintersect: The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) – the board of directors of the Federal Reserve decided to continue to “taper” – reduce their RATE of MONTHLY purchasing under their quantitative easing policy. The taper in the 18 December 2013 meeting was $10 billion, the 29 January 2014 meeting added another $10 of taper, and now the 19 March meeting tapered another $10 million.
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January indicates that growth in economic activity slowed during the winter months, in part reflecting adverse weather conditions.
This was the first meeting chaired by Janet L. Yellen, and there was a more-than-usual amount of word engineering in the meeting statement – but overall little of substance was changed. Tapering of the $85 million per month quantitative easing program began in December 2013 under former FOMC Chair Bernanke.
The following table compares the statement from the previous FOMC meeting to the statement for the meeting concluding today. Â Too much is being taken out of context in the media – review the changes below in context. Also below are the full set of economic projections by the FOMC. The more significant changes to meeting statement are highlighted.
