Fed Officials Forecast Main Rate to Stay Near Zero Until 2015
by Jeff Kearns & Craig Torres
Bloomberg.com
A majority of Federal Reserve officials don’t expect to raise the main interest rate until 2015, when they forecast the jobless rate will fall to between 6 percent and 6.6 percent.
Federal Open Market Committee participants forecast today that gross domestic product will expand 2.3 percent to 3 percent next year, compared with 2.5 percent to 3 percent in September. Estimates for 2014 are from 3 percent to 3.5 percent, versus 3 percent to 3.8 percent in the previous projection, according to the central tendency forecasts, which exclude the three highest and three lowest of 19 projections.
The FOMC earlier today voted to supplement their $40 billion a month of mortgage-bond purchases with $45 billion in monthly Treasury purchases once their Operation Twist program expires at the end of the month. The Fed said interest rates will stay low “at least as long” as the unemployment rate remains above 6.5 percent and if inflation “between one and two years ahead” is projected to be no more than 2.5 percent.
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2012-12-13 00:41:32
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