Newsroom

The Federal Open Market Committee completes a two-day monetary policy meeting today, with a policy statement and press conference with Fed Chair Janet Yellen expected to address any next policy steps ahead.

NAFCU Chief Economist and Director of Research Curt Long said the FOMC might change its tune regarding the amount of time it will wait before raising the federal funds rate target. "We expect the FOMC to change the ‘considerable time' language in their statement referring to the amount of time it would likely wait before raising rates," Long said. "Nonetheless, we expect the new language to be sufficiently vague so as to not upset markets, leaving the FOMC a range of options over the months ahead."

During its meeting in October, the committee repeated its earlier language about keeping its 0-to-0.25-percent fed funds rate target for "a considerable time" following the wrap-up of its asset purchasing program. The fed funds target has remained at 0 and 0.25 percent since December 2008.

In October, the committee also said it would maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-back securities in agency-backed securities and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction.

NAFCU's research team will issue a Macro Data Flash report summarizing the meeting this afternoon.